Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi (Apam) President, Overstone Kondowe, has expressed anger over government’s failure – through the Malawi Police Service (MPS) – to settle Dr Charles Dzamalala’s payment for MacDonald Masambuka’s postmortem.
Renowned pathologist Dzamalala is withholding postmortem results for the slain young man with albinism, Masambuka, over failure by the government to pay him K400,000 for service rendered.
“We are very disappointed. How can the whole government fail to pay such an amount of money? This shows lack of seriousness on the part of government to deal with attacks on persons with albinism,” said Kondowe in an interview on Tuesday.
He feared that this would culminate in delays to prosecute the case.
“Honestly, this is very disheartening! We expected government to act swiftly for justice to be achieved in the matter since suspected killers were already arrested. But reports we are getting from authorities now are very discouraging,” Kondowe said.
Dzamalala said he could not comment on the matter on professional grounds.
“Please, allow me not to comment on the matter. Thank you very much,” Dzamalala said.
Masambuka, who was from Traditional Authority Nkoola in Machinga District, is believed to have been abducted on the night of March 9 2018 near Chikwewo Trading Centre in the district. He was then murdered.
His assailants burned his body before burying it in a sweet-potato garden to destroy evidence.
Machinga Police Station officers have arrested at least 22 people, including Catholic priest Fr Thomas Muhosha, Sergeant Chileka and a medical officer, in connection with the murder.
National Police spokesperson, James Kadadzera, confirmed that there is a problem.
He, however, said he was working with the Eastern Region Police headquarters to establish the cause of the problem.
MPS is the body mandated to request for postmortem into any murder case as part of their investigations.
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