Rupiah handled Dr Musonda’s case poorly, observes TIZ

Rupiah handled Dr Musonda’s case poorly, observes TIZ
By Chibaula Silwamba
Mon 21 June 2010, 04:00 CAT

PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda handled Dr Solomon Musonda’s case poorly, Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) has charged. And TIZ executive director Goodwell Lungu has warned that Police are pushing Zambians to start taking the law in their own hands.

Commenting on the manner President Banda handled former health deputy minister, Dr Musonda’s alleged attempted murder case, Lungu expressed concern at the head of state’s sympathy for the alleged aggressor without empathy for the victim, Jackson Musaka, whom the deputy minister shot and wounded.

“The President handled this matter quite poorly in that he should have acted quite quickly and earlier. When we focus on his action, as Transparency International Zambia, we commend him that his action to fire Dr Musonda was quite good although it was late,” Lungu said.

“One critical thing that has come out of this case is that the law is very selective in Zambia and that the current government has two types of legal systems – one legal system is for the poor and those who are perceived not to be in agreement with the current government and this can ably be demonstrated by a number of facts.

“One fact is that, for instance, the President, his first comment when asked about Dr Musonda was that of trying to sympathise with the person who was suspected to have done a wrong, he did not sympathise in any way with the person who was shot, who was in pain, a citizen.”

He said TIZ noted that President Banda’s approach on this matter was not inspiring.

Lungu further said the Zambia Police Service took long to arrest Dr Musonda.

“In law, the offence that Dr Musonda did was a cognisable offence and a cognisable offence they did not need the authority of the DPP Director of Public Prosecution to arrest and even the excuse that they used that they could not effect an arrest because they did not have the medical report. That is not true,” Lungu said.

“The police should be professional enough not to start hoodwinking members of the public. As they were peddling that particular issue, on the other hand, the Minister of Home Affairs was giving a completely different reason. The Minister of Home Affairs was saying the delay of the arrest was as a result of the DPP not being in the country.”

He said the police must have acted professionally.

“A cognisable, if you see somebody and there is sufficient evidence that something has been done, you don’t even need to wait for the DPP or a medical report,” Lungu said.

“I want to emphasise that the way the police are conducting themselves, I think, they are pushing Zambians to start taking the law in their own hands because there is no way that all these crimes that are taking place that they will continue advancing this same excuse of saying the medical report is not yet in our hands. How many cases are they going to subject to that kind of issue?”

He said TIZ and other civil society organisations’ criticism of President Banda did not mean they hate him.

“One recommendation we want to make to the current President is that when we provide this type of criticism, we don’t hate the Republican President. It’s constructive criticism. Our main concern is that he should be able to handle these national issues in the public interest not in private interest,” said Lungu.

“If he continues on the path of mishandling these issues, we will continue to provide constructive criticism so that can handle public issues in the public interest and not in private interest.”

Dr Musonda was arrested on Thursday night and slapped with a charge of causing grievous harm with intent to maim, disfigure or disable contrary to section 224 subsection (A) of the penal code.

If convicted, Dr Musonda risks maximum life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) president Stephen Lungu said it was up to police and other authorities to determine how best the charges can be framed, depending on the levels of evidence available.

On the delay to arrest and commence prosecution of Dr Musonda, Lungu said it was true that the DPP was out of the country.

“One of the things that we were doing during this particular period on our part was consulting with the appropriate authorities about what was going on. We do know that the DPP was out of the country. The DPP only came in late last week,” said Stephen Lungu.