Liato threatened to kill workers over K2.1bn exposé, says witness

Liato threatened to kill workers over K2.1bn exposé, says witness
By Maluba Jere and Namatama Mundia
Fri 20 Jan. 2012, 13:58 CAT

A WITNESS yesterday testified that Austin Liato threatened to kill him and two other farm workers because Liato thought they informed police about the K2.1 billion buried at his farm.

And a heavy presence of armed police officers, seemingly fearing a court heist, yesterday brought business at the Magistrates' Court to a standstill when they surrounded the magistrates' complex as the trunks containing the K2.1 billion were hauled to court as exhibit.

Paul Lumano Kayando, a former worker at Liato's Mwembeshi Farm now residing at Lilayi Police College, told principal resident magistrate Aridah Chulu that after a combined team of police officers unearthed money from Liato's farm, the former labour minister accused his workers of being crooks and said that they would die.

He said when Liato threatened to kill him as well as his co-workers, they told him to go and kill President Michael Sata first because he was the one who sent the police officers to unearth money from his farm.

This is in a matter where Liato is charged with possession of property suspected of being proceeds of crime contrary to Section 71(1) of the forfeiture of proceeds of crime Act number 19 of 2010 of the Laws of Zambia.

It is alleged that Liato on November 24, 2011 in Lusaka, possessed and concealed money at his farm number L/Mpamba/44 Mwembeshi amounting to K2.1 billion reasonably suspected of being proceeds of crime.

During examination in chief led by Director of Public Prosecutions Mutembo Nchito, Kayando said he started working at Liato's farm on January 27, 2011 and that there was one big house, another house for the workers, a garage, a bathroom, a toilet and a small house.

He, however, said other structures at the farm were built just after the last general elections but that he could not recall the exact date.

Kayando said he was not at the farm when the structures in question were built as he had travelled to Kaoma for a bereavement.

He said when he returned from Kaoma, he found a new structure, which he said was not opened.

Kayando testified that the chalet in issue was round with big windows and that it had a lock with an alarm system.

"When I asked Liato what the house was for, he told me he wanted to be using it for roasting meat and when I peeped inside I saw nothing," he said.

Kayando narrated that on November 24 around 13:00 hours, police officers went to the farm and ordered the workers to be in one place and not move around.

He said when he and the other workers asked who the men were, they were told that they were police officers who were looking for something at the farm as they had been sent by the President.

"They said they would conduct searches starting with our houses but before searching us, they asked us to search them. They put their phones down and we searched them," Kayando said.

"After we searched them, they also searched us. They told us that among them there was a group from Drug Enforcement Commission and that if they found anyone of us with dagga, they would arrest us."

He added that the police asked the workers if there were any new houses built and whether we were around when the same were built.

Kayando said the police officers told the workers to go and show them the new house and that he and his co-workers told the officers that they knew nothing about the new house.

"They went and checked what was in the garage and then they took us to the chalet where they started taking pictures of the chalet. We phoned Mr. Liato that he should come because police had entered his land and he told us that we should leave them to do whatever they wanted," said Kayando.

"They took pictures of the house outside and one of the police officers went back to their car and got a shovel and a pick."

He said the locks to the chalet had an alarm which would go off when touched saying he and the other workers used to hear the alarm go off most of the time because goats usually go near the house.

"It was a grill door and small goats would go in then the alarm on the door would go off," Kayando said.

"We never discussed this with Liato. He told us the keys were with the younger brother. Things changed when they made a chalet and the garage. Before I went to Kaoma, I am the one who used to keep the keys but when I was going to Kaoma, Liato got the keys. So, when we told the police we did not have the keys to the chalet, the police broke the gate."

He further testified that when police entered the chalet, they started knocking the ground and it sounded like there was a hole in the ground.

Kayando told the court that he was not feeling well so the police asked two of his co-workers to dig the ground inside the chalet.

He said after the ground was dug, police officers called him and his friends and asked them what they were seeing.

"They police peeped inside and I also peeped. I saw two trunks, they got two trunks from the hole, Kayando said.

"They were big black metal trunks and they removed them out of the chalet. They told us they were going to open the trunks so we could all see what was inside. They opened one and found a small safe deposit box.

"They opened the trunk by hitting the locks with an iron bar. The safe looked like it had a remote. The police tried to open it but they failed so they got the iron bars and started hitting the safe on the sides and that is when it opened. They found that there was money inside."

Asked what he did when police asked him and his colleagues when the police discovered the money, Kayando caused laughter not only to the people in the packed court room but Liato himself when he said "vinatibaba kumutima maningi kaili ma salary yamene tenze kutenga yenze yangongo." (It pained us a lot because the salaries we were getting were too meagre.)

He said police opened two safe deposit boxes in two trunks and that the safe deposit boxes contained K50,000 and K20,000 notes.

Kayando added that police then put all the money back in the trunks and asked Liato's workers to carry them to the car.

At that point, Nchito applied to have the matter stood down for a few minutes so that the money in question could be brought for identification purposes.

Heavily armed plain-clothed and uniformed police officers sealed off the area from the magistrates' complex car park and passage leading to Court five with no one allowed to pass as the money was being hauled to the court room.