High Court Judge Michael Mtambo on Friday challenged Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale and her team to research and find out whether a court has powers to make a motion that an accused\u2019s bail should be revoked.<\/p>\n
Specifically, Mtambo wants to revoke Raphael Kasambara\u2019s bail apparently because there have been \u201ca lot of funny things\u201d happening in a case where three men\u2014including Kasambara\u2014 are accused of conspiring and attempting to murder former Budget Director Paul Mphwiyo.<\/p>\n
Mtambo said from the time he delivered his ruling which found that Kasambara and two others had cases to answer in the murder plot of Mphwiyo, numerous attempts have been made to delay progress on the case which he had initially wanted to conclude by May this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the Court\u2019s own motion, I want to ask the third accused [Kasambara] why his bail should not be revoked,\u201d said a calm Mtambo when the court reconvened in Lilongwe to hear the State\u2019s application for the revocation of another suspect, Macdonald Kumwembe\u2019s bail.<\/p>\n
During the day, the judge also heard arguments from both the State and Kumwembe on the latter\u2019s application that Mtambo should recuse himself from the case apparently because chances are high that he will be biased against the accused.<\/p>\n
However, hearing of Kumwembe\u2019s bail revocation application did not take place. The matter has since been adjourned to 23 and 24 September.<\/p>\n
But, in a sudden twist of events, Mtambo convicted Kumwembe after ruling that the accused\u2019s letter that the judge should recuse himself from the case was \u201csarcastic, demeaning and rude\u201d, thus in contempt of court.<\/p>\n
In his motion that Kasambara\u2019s bail should be revoked, Mtambo observed that there were some connections between the former Justice Minister\u2019s arguments that Mtambo should recuse himself and those of Kumwembe.<\/p>\n
According to the judge, the connections imply that Kasambara was also involved in Kumwembe\u2019s application for his recusal\u2014 which has since been thrown o u t\u2014\u201cand the theory is that the third accused produced the arguments [for Kumwembe].\u201d<\/p>\n
But in his earlier response to Kachale\u2019s questions, Kumwembe maintained that he was the one who had produced the arguments.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Mtambo added that the issue of his Curriculum Vitae (CV) which Kumwembe used as one of his basis for his application that he should recuse himself also came up when Kasambara made his submissions for recusal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CV was in the custody of the third accused [Kasambara] and it has come up again. All this is aimed at delaying the conclusion of the case. The granting of bail [to the accused] was based on the fact that they would cooperate,\u201d said Mtambo.<\/p>\n
He, however, praised the second accused in the case, Pika Manondo, whom he said \u201cis still continuing with his impressive spirit and shows he wants the case to be concluded quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n
On his motion that Kasambara\u2019s bail should be revoked, Mtambo said: \u201cAs judge in charge of his matter, I have to show that I am in control. And to the State, researching whether the court can make such a motion is your homework for the next hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Should the State find that a court has powers to make a motion that an accused\u2019s bail should be revoked, Kasambara will have to argue against the motion apart from defending himself in his conspiracy to murder case<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
High Court Judge Michael Mtambo on Friday challenged Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale and her team to research and find out whether a court has powers to make a motion that an accused\u2019s bail should be revoked. Specifically, Mtambo wants to revoke Raphael Kasambara\u2019s bail apparently because there have been \u201ca lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8453,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451\/revisions\/8453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}