Kenyan Political Activist Don Bosco Pleads Guilty to Filing False Tax Returns to the US State Department of Treasury

Kenyan political activist Don Bosco Gichana is set to be sentenced by Tanzania's High Court in Arusha.

The flamboyant businessman who has been in custody in Tanzania since 2013 will be sentenced after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money laundering charges last week.

Bosco had been charged together with four other suspects including his lawyer Median Mwale. Gichana pleaded guilty on Thursday last week after the prosecution led by principal state attorneys Oshwald Tibabyekomya and Hashima Ngole read out the charges to him.

He also accepted the four exhibits tabled before the court by the prosecution, Tanzanian press reported.

He was accused that he electronically filed false tax returns to the US State Department of Treasury's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) using different names of Dale Houston, Herbert Breneman and Syron Hess among others between 2008 and 2010

The prosecution told the court that in the false tax return, Bosco indicated addresses of his accomplices who were at the time living in the US.

Gichana, an ally of Opposition leader Raila Odinga, was first arrsted by police in 2013 while he traveled to Tanzania to visit his lawyer Mwale who had been in detention since August 2011 on money laundering charges.

Tanzania police officers arrested him at the Namanga border point on his way back to Kenya.

Raila is reported to have unsuccessfully pushed for Bosco's release by seeking the intervention of his friend, Tanzanian President John Magufuli.

In the run to 2007 general election, Gichana is said to have gifted the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader with a brand new Hummer SUV worth millions of shillings.