Convicted former minister of justice, Raphael Kasambara, has said he will appeal against a guilty ruling which High Court Judge, Michael Mtambo, on Thursday slapped him with alongside Macdonald Kumwembe and Pika Manondo.
Kasambara was being tried on a conspiracy to murder charge, alongside Kumwembe and Manondo who had an additional charge of attempting to murder former budget director in the Ministry of Finance, Paul Mphwiyo on September 13, 2013.
After several twists and turns for about three years, the court finally found the three guilty.
Police officers who were nearby stood to handcuff the convicts before taking them to prison. The officers succeeded in handcuffing Kumwembe and Manondo, and walked towards a police anti-riot vehicle which was waiting outside the courtroom.
However, Kasambara refused to be handcuffed and he walked out of the courtroom, surrounded by the officers as they went towards the police vehicle. He declined to grant any media interview.
However, as he was getting into the police vehicle, he shouted: “God is in control! We shall overcome this injustice. The judge was compromised and it was a miscarriage of justice. We are going to appeal!”
In his reaction to Kasambara’s claim that the judge was compromised, State Prosecutor, Enock Chibwana, said as far as the State is concerned, Mtambo was neutral in the way he handled the case.
“That is [Kasambara’s] opinion but as far as we are concerned, the judge simply noted the evidence that we presented and made his mind. The court has accepted the evidence that we provided and a conviction has been made, so we, as the State, are satisfied,” said Chibwana.
Judge Mtambo said he analysed the evidence from both the state and the defence in arriving at the determination.
“I have found that the state has made out the case of conspiracy to murder against all the three accused persons and I convict them accordingly. Bail for the three accused persons is hereby revoked and they shall be remanded in custody,” said Mtambo before rising from his chair.
Starting from the general background of the case, anticipation became high in the courtroom as Mtambo finally started touching finer details of the case. It was a judgement which was dominated by simple language. Of course some legal terms were used wherever necessary.
That did not, however, stop people following the delivery of the judgement from understanding that the judge was convinced that Kumwembe, who told the court that he was in Mozambique on the day of the shooting, was actually in Malawi.
The judge even said Kumwembe was in fact using his phone not Luciano Chiumbuzo, as Kumwembe had told the court.
“He has failed to provide details of the alibis. He did not provide the place in Tete where he went, the lodge where he slept. No names were given of persons he had met in Tete. The first accused person had testified in cross-examination that he wrote the names of the persons he met in a diary. That diary was never produced…When I consider the facts in this case, I find that the first accused was in Lilongwe on 30th August 2013,” Mtambo said.
The judge also accepted the evidence Kasambara’s maid, Jesse Mussa, tendered in court. He said although she did not have enough information, she was true in essential part of her evidence.
On the identity of the people involved in the shooting, Mtambo started by accepting the evidence given to him by both Mphwiyo and his guard, Charles Singano, about what they had told the court. The judge said the differences they had on the number of Mphwiyo’s assailants might have been because Singano was inside the fence, while Mphwiyo was outside.
Singano said he saw one, while Mphwiyo said he saw three to five people.
The judge also accepted the use of call-logs, which was the essential component the state used in proving the conspiracy to murder count.
The judge is yet to set a date for hearing arguments of sentencing.
Meanwhile a legal expert, Chrispine Sibande, has said there are some issues that have to be looked critically.
“One of them is to do with technology. The issue of call-logs has to be looked at critically. We need to improve on how it can be used,” he said.
Sibande has said the offence of attempted to murder attracts a maximum of life imprisonment, and that of conspiracy to murder attracts a maximum of 14 years jail term.
Two judges, Ivy Kamanga and Esmie Chombo recused themselves from the case, before Mtambo took over mid 2014.
Mphwiyo’s shooting preceded revelations of massive looting of government coffers, which has become known as Cashgate.
Kasambara and Manondo are suspects in one Cashgate case.
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