Maravi

Police apprehend UPND member over Mufumbwe violence

Police apprehend UPND member over Mufumbwe violence
By David Chongo in Solwezi
Sat 12 June 2010, 04:01 CAT

NDOLA UPND member Mark Munsanje has been arrested in connection with the violence that rocked the recent Mufumbwe by-election and will appear in court on June 24.

Munsanje, whose interrogation took about an hour on Wednesday in Solwezi, was slapped with three charges for his alleged involvement in a case in which a police officer was alleged to have been abducted in a vehicle Musanje had been driving.

He was charged with threatening violence contrary to Section 90, assault on a police officer contrary to Section 250 (b) and abduction with intent to murder contrary to Section 255 Cap 87 of the Laws of Zambia.

However, he was granted a K10 million police bond with two working local sureties on similar amount each.

Munsanje, who was accompanied by Copperbelt UPND information and publicity secretary Kennedy Kalunga commended the manner in which the investigating officer, a superintendent Chibwe handled the case.

“I must mention that the police were very professional. They handled the whole process very well. I can’t complain. If we have such officers in the police service, I think things would be handled well,” said Munsanje.

However, Kalunga said police had failed to raise the issue of attacks on UPND members of parliament Charles Kakoma and Watson Lumba including MMD cadres’ destruction of their bus during the same election.

Kalunga complained that despite the fact that the police had information on the two incidences, nothing had been done so far.

He said the service was exercising selective justice by not bringing to book the MMD cadres alleged to have been involved.

“One thing that continues to bother my mind is the way the police are handling these cases. Why are they not arresting the MMD cadres who assaulted Hon Kakoma and Hon Lumba? They know them and they know what happened but they are doing nothing. For justice to happen they have to be arrested because these cases happened before the alleged case we are following happened,” said Kalunga.

Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, MARK MUNSANJE, POLITICAL VIOLENCE, UPND

posted by MrK @ 12:47 PM