Tundu Lissu, an opposition figure in Tanzania, announced on Wednesday that he is taking legal action against the government and the telecommunications company Tigo over a failed assassination attempt in 2017.
Recent revelations have surfaced indicating that Tigo had provided Lissu’s mobile phone data to the authorities in the weeks leading up to the assassination attempt that took place seven years ago.
Gunmen ambushed Lissu’s car at his residence in the capital city of Dodoma on September 7, 2017, resulting in him being shot 16 times. He was subsequently evacuated to Kenya and then Europe for medical treatment.
Despite the attack, no individual was held accountable and Lissu has accused the administration of then-president, John Magufuli, for being behind the assassination attempt.
According to a report by The Guardian on Tuesday, an internal investigator from Tigo’s previous owners, Millicom, testified in court that the company had been providing Lissu’s mobile phone data to the government in the weeks before the attack.
“From August 29, 2017, the intensity of the tracking increased and [Millicom] used its human and electronic resources to livetrack 24/7 the location of two of Mr Lissu’s mobile phones,” lawyers for the investigator said.
Michael Clifford, the investigator and former policeman, is challenging his dismissal by Millicom in 2019 at a tribunal in London on the grounds that he was sacked for raising concerns about the incident.
“This news is very significant for us. We are getting the chance to know those involved in the attempt to kill me,” Tundu Lissu told a press conference.
“I have told my lawyers to go ahead and sue both Tigo and the government of Tanzania,” he said, adding that though he could not say when the case would be filed, he intended to take the case to the international courts.
“We will now force Tigo in court to release Michael Clifford’s investigation report regarding surveillance on me,” Lissu said.
“Tigo will tell us who in the Tanzanian government instructed them to track me.”
Lissu, a critic of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which came to power in 1962, has been detained several times.
56-year-old Lissu returned to Tanzania in 2023 after a ban on opposition rallies was lifted. He had spent five years in exile in Belgium but returned briefly to run for the presidency in 2020.
Lissu, who is the second-in-command of Chadema party, is challenging the policies of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who succeeded Magufuli after his death in March 2021.
He has accused Hassan of engaging in the authoritarian practices of her predecessor after showing initial signs of embracing democracy.