(Dar es Salaam) A member of Tanzania’s opposition Chadema party has been found dead after being “kidnapped” by gunmen, beaten and doused with acid, party chairman Freeman Mbowe told a news conference on Sunday.
Ali Mohamed Kibao, a member of the party’s national secretariat, was forced off a bus at gunpoint on Friday as he travelled from Dar Es Salaam to Tanga on the country’s northern coast, party officials said.
His body was found in a neighborhood of Dar Es Salaam on Saturday.
Mr Kibao’s arrest comes less than a month after Mr Mbowe, his deputy Tundu Lissu and other Chadema officials were briefly arrested in a sweeping raid ahead of a party youth rally.
“The autopsy was performed [en présence] “Chadema’s lawyers and it is clear that Mr Kibao was severely beaten and had acid thrown in his face,” Mr Mbowe said at his press conference on Sunday.
“We cannot allow our people to continue to disappear or be killed like this,” he said, adding that “the lives of Chadema leaders are currently in danger.”
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Sunday that she learned of Mr Kibao’s death “with great sadness” and offered her condolences to family, friends and party officials.
“I have ordered the investigating authorities to send me detailed reports on this extremely serious incident,” she wrote on her X account.
“Our country is democratic and all citizens have the right to life. The government I lead will not tolerate such acts of cruelty,” the president added.
In a statement on Sunday, police said they were continuing to investigate “this tragic incident”. Mr Mbowe said, without giving details, that other party officials had also disappeared.
Mr Kibao was a retired military intelligence officer who had worked with other opposition parties, as well as the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), before joining Chadema, he said without giving specific dates.
Human rights activists and opponents had expressed concerns that the crackdown could lead to a return to the oppressive policies of former President John Magufuli, who died in 2021.
In August, the NGO Amnesty International described the arrests of opponents as a “deeply worrying sign” ahead of Tanzania’s presidential and parliamentary elections in 2025, the first since Mr Magufuli’s death.
The recent arrests came despite pledges by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to lift restrictions on the opposition and the media.