Police officers disappoint State, fail to identify Munir, Emmanuel Mwamba
POLICE officers yesterday shocked Director of Public Prosecutions Gilbert Phiri’s juniors when they failed to identify Emmanuel Mwamba and Lumezi constituency member of parliament Munir Zulu in a video recording they submitted to Court as part of their evidence in Zulu’s seditious case.
Despite Mwamba and Zulu being outspoken public figures the two police officers claimed they have never seen them before neither do they know the prominent duo.
The ignorance exhibited by the police officers made the gallery titter as Zulu’s lawyers were beaming in anticipation for an easy ride in cross examination.
In this matter Zulu is charged with three counts of seditious practices.
Testifying before resident magistrate Faidess Hamaundu, Micheal Ilishebo a police officer at Force Headquarters under cyber crime criminal investigation department said on May 29, he received a letter from lnspector Tembo of Lusaka division who needed his help to validate a video that related to a case he was investigating.
He said he was given a web link which took him to a Facebook page called Patriotic Front which he validated.
When describing the content of the video, Ilishebo said he could only recognize two men, one who is light complexioned and donned a brown jacket coupled with specs in reference to Emmanuel Mwamba.
He said the other one was fair in complexion and wore a checkered purple shirt, with a black padded bomber vest and had a blue microphone placed in front of him, in reference to Zulu.
Ilishebo said he watched the video for a few seconds but could not identify the two men.
During Cross examination by Emmanuel Phiri the witness said he does not know the offense that Zulu is charged with.
When crossed examined by Mcqueen Zaza if he saw the video, the witness said he did not view it for more than a minute.
Asked if any person incited violence in the video the witness denied.
And detective chief inspector Jonathan Phiri, a digital forensic analyst based Zambia police service headquarters under the criminal investigation department said he received a letter from his supervisors asking him to extract a video from a facebook link that he was provided with
“I opened the link and I saw a video which was broadcasted live. It was posted on May 26 at 14:02 hours I extracted the video there was a man wearing a brown jacket and a white shirt inside, light in complexion he was also wearing specs addressing the media. (Emmanuel Mwamba),”he said.
“There was also a man wearing a purple checkered shirt and a black vest addressing the media I don’t know them. My specific role was to extract a video and preserve it not to master what was being discussed in the video.”
He said he used a facebook download manager developed by facebook to download the video and he didn’t encounter any challenges as the process was smooth.
“I didn’t have challenges downloading the video, facebook download manager extracted the video for me,”Phiri said.
When asked by Chisomo Sikanyika if he could identify the men in the video the witness said; “I don’t know them it’s my first time to see them,” leaving the State advocate dumbfounded.
When cross examined by Zaza the witness said the forensic report does not indicate any crime that was being analyzed.
“Am not in a position to state the crime that was committed I was only instructed to extract the video,” Phiri said.
He said that he cared less to know the contents of the video and neither was there dereliction of duty on his part by his lack of curiosity.
Trial continues today.
By Mwaka Ndawa
Kalemba June 19, 2024.