Maravi

DEC officers detain Wynter Kabimba at Airport

DEC officers detain Wynter Kabimba at Airport
By George Chellah
Fri 10 June 2011, 04:00 CAT

THE Drug Enforcement Commission briefly detained opposition PF secretary general Wynter Kabimba at Lusaka International Airport when he arrived from South Africa on Wednesday evening. Kabimba, who was held at the airport for almost an hour, confirmed the incident to The Post yesterday. Kabimba said he was aboard a South African Airways flight number 0066 from Johannesburg to Lusaka.

“When the plane landed at 17:45, I cleared my immigration procedures and after collecting my luggage, the only piece of luggage I had on the plane, I was walking out of the arrivals terminal through the ‘nothing to declare’ exit when an officer who was not in uniform stopped me and directed me to report to the other exit and I obliged,” Kabimba said.

“When I got there another officer asked if they could search my bag. I had two pieces of luggage, a travel bag and a plastic bag containing books which I bought at OR Tambo International Airport.”

He said as the officer was about to begin the search, another officer arrived and requested that the search be conducted in the office.

“Obviously at that stage I became suspicious and alert that this was not a normal airport search because I was the only passenger who was being asked to go to some office, which I didn’t know. The rest of the passengers had been let through,” Kabimba said.

“When we arrived in the office I discovered that I was now in the company of two gentlemen and a skinny looking lady. At that point, one of the gentlemen said to me ‘Sir, we are officers from the DEC and we would like to search your bag’. So I said ‘please go ahead.’”

He said the second officer searched his bag thoroughly.

“When he finished searching my bag, he searched the plastic bag where my books were. Then the officer who appeared to be the senior most amongst the three whose name I came to know later to be one Brian Chakulya asked the female officer to leave the office at which stage they asked me if they could conduct a body search to which I obliged,” Kabimba said.

“I emptied my pockets, took out my wallet, my phone…everything I had on me and stretched my arms and I said to the officer ‘please touch everywhere, don’t leave any place. Satisfy yourself that you have conducted a search.’”

He said by the time they finished searching, it was around 18:15 hours.

“After the body search they asked for my passport, which I gave to them. After browsing through the passport, he asked me what I thought really was a silly question as to my purpose of travel to South Africa. At that stage he got a piece of paper and a pen and said he was going to ask me a few questions and he wanted to write down my answers,” Kabimba said.

“But I told him that my travel to South Africa was none of his business and I could only answer further questions if I where under arrest. When he said ‘no, you are not under arrest,’ I told him that, ‘then am not going to answer any questions’.”

Kabimba said he later asked the officers if he could leave since their searches of his bag and body had yielded nothing.

“I could see that the officers looked extremely disappointed. Then the senior officer Chakulya said to me that I could not leave because they where now waiting for the regional commander to come and Chakulya was frantically trying to call the regional commander on his phone to report,” Kabimba said.

“By 18:45 hours, the regional commander had not shown up and Chakulya then apologised to me for the inconvenience that had been caused, still looking extremely disappointed and said that I could leave.

“I told him that I would not accept the apology and I was going to reflect on the matter and decide what appropriate action to take against the DEC. But I didn’t end there; I told the three officers that they where working for a rotten political system which wanted to intimidate innocent citizens and that we shall fight the system.”

Kabimba said as he walked out of the terminal building, he discovered the presence of several OP officers who kept looking at him and talking to each other in low tones.

“Obviously, looking ashamed and disappointed that their intelligence information on me was wrong because I was walking out as an innocent citizen, which I am,” he said.

He insisted that what happened to him on Wednesday was not in any way a normal airport search.

“It was obviously politically schemed and motivated by those in authority using the DEC as an organisation of political intimidation and victimisation of Mr Rupiah Banda’s political opponents,” Kabimba said.

“This is what the Zambian people fought against in 1991 when UNIP was running similar institutions like the Special Investigations Team on Economy and Trade (SITET), which some of the officers at the DEC today worked for,” said Kabimba.

Labels: CORRUPTION, DEC, PF, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 4:50 PM