Maravi

Cops search Mwale's farm again

Cops search Mwale's farm again
By Mwala Kalaluka
Wed 28 Dec. 2011, 13:59 CAT

SECURITY officers yesterday picked up Maxwell Mwale at the Lusaka magistrates' court in order to search his Makeni home. And another former minister in president Rupiah Banda's administration, Kenneth Konga says the seizure of his properties by law enforcement agencies investigating plunder of national resources is inconveniencing.

A combined team from the Zambia Police, Drug Enforcement Commission and Anti Corruption Commission wanted Mwale to take them to his Makeni farmhouse for them to carry out another search.

Sources said the search was in connection with the bicycles that were found on Mwale and that investigators wanted to establish the source of the funds used in procuring the said bicycles.

Mwale was appearing before Lusaka chief resident magistrate, Joshua Banda, yesterday morning in a case where he is charged with one count of failing to account for 261 bicycles reasonably suspected to have been obtained unlawfully.

Testifying in the trial, 40-year-old driver, Carlos Lungu said he was assigned by an MMD secretariat official identified as Mr Muntanga to drive to Mwale's house in Makeni area to collect some unspecified items.

Lungu said this was on the evening of October 18, 2011 and that earlier the same Muntanga contracted him and his friend to drive motor vehicles hauling some items from Lusaka House to the MMD's new offices on Nyati Road, Rhodes Park.

Lungu said Mwale welcomed them at his house and that shortly he asked them to get into their motor vehicles and follow him but that 40 metres from the house, they were blocked by two motor vehicles carrying police officers.

He said they were ordered to go back to Mwale's house and after a search there, one of the officers came out with a bicycle which was placed inside a light truck that was covered behind.

Lungu said they were then taken to Police Force Headquarters.

The trial was adjourned to today after two prosecution witnesses adduced their evidence but as Mwale came out from the courtroom, the probe team members called his lawyer, Sakwiba Sikota to tell him what they intended to do.

Sikota after a while asked Mwale to follow him to his motor vehicle, after which Mwale told his wife and children that their lunch had been aborted because the investigators wanted to search his house again.

Two members of the probe team jumped into Mwale's motor vehicle as he drove to Central Chambers where, after a short discussion, he led the officers to his house in Makeni for the search.

Sikota, who failed to accompany his client to witness the search owing to his diabetic state, said the security wings were investigating a matter that was already before the court and he described the move as harassment.

"They have conducted searches before, again they want to go and search," Sikota said. "He can't even have lunch, that is a denial of human rights!"

And Sikota, said in an interview shortly after a Boxing Day interrogation by a combined team of investigative wings relating to Konga's seized properties that the Hummer was bought for his client by Parliament.

"It's over his parliamentary Hummer, the one that Parliament bought for him. Can you imagine they have seized the one that Parliament gave to him!" exclaimed Sikota after he was asked what the over an hour interrogation was all about.

"It is something simple. They could even go to the Clerk of the National Assembly Doris Mwiinga and say 'did you buy this on behalf of the Honourable?' You know there is that scheme thing. So when we say it is witch-hunting, when we say it is persecution, it's very clear."

Asked if Konga had been charged with any offence, Sikota said the investigative wings would never charge his client because they were just witch-hunting.

"But they are inconveniencing him because now he has to hire another vehicle since his vehicle is now seized; the parliamentary vehicle you can imagine," Sikota said.

Sikota said even the Toyota Land Cruiser registration number ALC 8595 which Konga used to drive to the former Task Force on Corruption office in Lusaka's Woodlands area on Monday was equally hired.

Police spokesperson Elizabeth Kanjela told journalists on Monday that several of Konga's properties had been seized and he had since been warned and cautioned in the ongoing investigations.

Some of the properties seized include a hotel under construction on Dedan Kimathi Road, a semi-detached flat in Kabulonga and mining equipment in Makeni.

Police officers were also dispatched to Konga's Constituency, Chavuma, in the North-Western Province where an assortment of items were also confiscated.

Labels: CORRUPTION, DEC, KENNETH KONGA, MAXWELL MWALE

posted by MrK @ 5:10 PM