Mohamed Chande Othman: Chief Justice of Tanzania (2010 – 2017)

Mohamed Chande Othman (born January 1, 1952) serves as a lawyer and was previously Tanzania’s Chief Justice.

He is well-respected on the international stage for his in-depth knowledge of the legal-political, and other aspects of International Humanitarian Legislation, Peacekeeping, Refugee Legislation, as well as Evidence, and Criminal Law. He served as a UN prosecutor and expert advisor in numerous criminal tribunals, including UNTAET (East Timor), UNDP Cambodia, the International Rwanda Criminal Tribunal (ICTR), and the United Nations Council of Human Rights for South Sudan and the Lebanon-Israel Armed Conflict.

He presently heads the United Nations Independent Experts’ Panel tasked with looking into fresh facts relating to the death of Dag Hammarskjöld.

Mohamed Chande Othman: Biography

Mohamed Othman Education

• LLB (Hon), 1974, Dar es Salaam University
• 1982 – M.A. (IR) from Webster University in Switzerland’s Geneva
• Certificate, 1983, International Law Academy of the Hague in the Netherlands

High-Ranking UN Positions

• Headed the United Nations Independent Experts’ Panel, whose task was assessing as well as examining fresh facts about former Secretary-General of the UN Dag Hammarskjöld’s unfortunate death (since March 2015)
• The United Nations Council of Human Rights: High-Level Inquiry Commission member into the state of affairs in Lebanon after the Armed Conflict Between Israel and Lebanon (2006)
• The Independent Expert in Matters Concerning Human Rights in Sudan of the United Nations Human Rights Council (2009 to 2010). He travels to the Abyei region and Southern Sudan.
• East Timor’s Prosecutor General (UNTAET) (June 1999 to July 2002)
• From 1998 to 2000, he was the Prosecutions Chief at the ICTR.

Positions in the Tanzanian Justice Department

• Chief Justice (December 2010 – January 2017)
• Judge of the High Court (December 2003–October 2004)
• Judge in the Appeal Court (August 2004 – February 2008)

Other Professional and Legal Experience

• Mohamed Chande Othman was part of Aga Khan University’s Trustees Board (from 2017)
• Expert consultant at the Wayamo Foundation (Accountability and Justice Group of Africa).
• Presidential Inquiry Commission’s chairman on pastoralist relocation together with their cattle from the Usanga Valley at Ihefu in Tanzania’s Mbarali District.
• Bank of Tanzania’s Public Prosecutor.
• Worked with the Red Crescent Society and Red Cross International Federation.
• Co-founded Sideco Group Limited, an International Trade and Development Corporation located in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mohamed Chande Othman Publications

• Othman, Mohamed. Accountability for violations of International Humanitarian Laws: Case of East Timor and Rwanda. 2005. Springer Publishers in Berlin, Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3-540-26081-3.
• Ambos, Kai and Othman, Mohamed Chande. New approach in Multinational criminal justice: East Timor, Kosovo, Cambodia and Sierra Leone. Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany. (2003)
• “The Refugee Witnesses protection by the Rwanda International Criminal Tribunals” Oxford Academic, 2002. International Journals of Refugee Laws.
• “Defense Practices and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal“, published in 2006 by Transitional Publishers Inc in New York.
• The Gulf War and Captivity Termination for war Prisoners, (Review of International Law), published in 1993 in Geneva.

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