As most would say, your neighbour is an added relative. You do not have to be friends but should always try to be on good terms. Depending on your relationship, they can either be very helpful or spiteful.

In 2004 a man appealed to the Court of Appeal of Tanzania in Mwanza after being convicted of the murder of his neighbour.

Without being provoked or attacked, in 1997, the man known as Majuto Samson went to his neighbour’s house in Nkorongwe, Kigoma and butchered her with a hoe at the back of her head to death.

Samson found magret Zakayo (deceased) outside her grass-thatched house with her daughter Violet Johnson at 06:30 a.m and warmly greeted them, “jamani salama?” However, he took out matches and set Zakayo’s stack of maize at the compound on fire, which extended to burning the house.

Arriving at the neighbour’s house, Samson had an axe and a hoe, and at this moment, he took out a hoe and struck the deceased; she died instantly.

Inside the house was the deceased’s daughter-in-law, Hadija Mutwe, who, along with Violet, started running with her newborn on her back as Samson chased them.

In court, Samson’s case was clear that he had committed the crime, but the court wanted to know whether it was intentional.

Although the appellant’s representer Mr. Byabusha, raised a concern that his customer was not fine mentally when he committed the crime, the court found the reason weak.

One of the reasons was that while Mutwe was running, the appellant went near her, saying I can’t kill an angel, “siwezi kuua malaika.”

The court ruled that a mentally unstable person wouldn’t have been able to have compassion for the baby at that exact moment.

The court found no merit in the appeal and dismissed it in its entirety.