Magistrate Wishimanga rejects unsubstantiated testimony against Malanji
By Thomas Ngala
THE Economic and Financial Crimes Court has trashed an arresting officer’s testimony alleging that former foreign affairs minister Joe Malanji has been interfering with witnesses.
This is in a case where Malanji and former secretary to the treasury Fredson Yamba are charged with 10 counts of wilfull failure to comply with laid down procedure and possession of property suspected to be proceeds of crime.
When the matter came up for trial on Friday before magistrate Irene Wishimanga who is sitting under the Economic and Financial Crimes Court, the prosecution presented an arresting officer who identified himself as Kwaleyela Mukelabai to alert court of the challenges that have been there in securing witnesses in the matter.
The essence of the move was to seek the court’s warning to those who might have been interfering with the witnesses.
But before Mukelabai could continue, defence lawyer Makebi Zulu from Makebi Zulu Advocates objected, saying a person who has not been listed as witness could not give testimony in the matter.
“Witnesses who do not appear on the list shall not testify. We have looked at the list of witnesses and this particular witness does not seem to appear on the list,” he said.
The state however insisted that the arresting officer should tell the court what has been happening with witnesses, an application which was granted.
Following the court’s permission, Mukelabai said: “I thought I could bring to the attention of the court the challenges I am facing as the arresting officer. There’s a trend that I’ve observed starting from the time that I had traveled to Turkey. My witness was called by Mr Malanji while I was in Turkey. That was in November 2022. I interrogated the officer and that witness was Sam Sankenda and he confirmed that Mr Malanji called to find out where we were…”
He added that he had recently received a call from “our staff” in Lubumbashi [in the Democratic Republic of Congo] “that the past three days my witness from Lubumbashi is being called through the Zambian numbers and being offered a lot of money that he should not come to testify in this matter, your honour”.
Mukelabai said on his second trip to Turkey, he had conversations with his witnesses there.
“That was in February this year when I went to interact with my witnesses. We had good interaction, all my witnesses agreed to come. On the following day, in February… after meeting them, they came back to me and said due to security reasons, they were not willing to come,” Mukelabai said.
He charged that the trend has continued, adding that Malanji is able to interfere because he has the list of names for witnesses.
But when asked when Malanji had a list of the names for witnesses, Mukelabai said he was unable to tell.
And when the magistrate asked if the alleged trend started after the list was given, Mukelabai said: “It started even before the list was given. My suspicion is that he has been aware of the list of witnesses. That is why I thought I would raise this….”
When the state asked when the list was submitted to court, the witness said “I am not able to recall the date but it was this year.”
“Name of the witness in LUbumbashi is Charles Kaozya… the witness was scheduled to be here this week, any day from Tuesday to Friday,” Mukelabai said.
And during cross-examination, Mukelabai failed to prove that Malanji was interfering with witnesses as he said “as at now, we can’t say it is him” adding that what he was raising was merely suspicion.
But the state maintained that despite efforts they are making to bring witnesses, they are being frustrated.
In his submission, however, Zulu said “the rightful words to use as regards to submission is speculation, assumptions, unproven and highly opinionated submissions that are capable of prejudicing the accused person. There’s no substance in the application before you, warranting any reprimand, particularly directed to any of the accused persons.”
He recalled that it is the state that has been informing the court on instances they failed to avail witnesses, and that listed people were unable to testify due to exams, as the case was with one of them.
“If the state was factual, we would have made tremendous progress in this matter,” submitted Zulu.
And in her ruling, magistrate Wishimanga said there is no evidence supporting the claims of interference from Malanji.
She recalled that one of the witnesses, Sankenga testified and he did not mention that he was interfered with.
“I would have wished the witness had more evidence. There’s no evidence,” magistrate Wishimanga said.
She urged those alleging that there were people interfering with witnesses to report them to police.
Magistrate however warned that if there were people interfering with witnesses in the case in question they should desist.
Credit – The Mast