SAROVAR CCTV FOOTAGE SHOWS AMOS CHANDA DESTROYED COURT EVIDENCE RELATING TO SPEED CAMERAS CORRUPTION CASE.
Sarovar Premiere Hotel says it secured CCTV video footage showing former presidential spokesperson Amos Chanda allegedly confessing to having burnt a 398-paged court record relating to a matter he was an accused person.
Sarovar Premiere Hotel chief security officer Anthony Mtonga who took witness stand before the Lusaka Magistrate’s Court says he transfered the said video footage onto a flash disk and has kept in his possession.
In this matter Chanda is facing two counts of theft and destroying court evidence, an act contrary to the laws of Zambia.
Testifying ahead of the court hearing moving to the alleged scene of the SELF-INCRIMINATING confession, Sarovar Premiere Hotel on May 24,
Mtonga said before presiding magistrate Ireen Wishimanga that he secured the said video footage.
He said in the video footage of Chanda at the hotel, he was conversing with a known person who also visibly used an audio recorder to record the said conversation.
Mtonga said Chanda was recorded confessing to destroying court documents that were to be used as evidence before the court in another matter he was facing.
However, Chanda’s lawyers argued that there was no need for the court to move to Sarovar Premiere Hotel as the said footage was not authentic, in that it was recorded using CCTV, which automatically deletes after 60 days.
They further argued that the incidence Chanda is being accused of occured about 6 months ago.
But magistrate Wishimanga in passing ruling on this matter, decided that it was only right that the court moves to the actual site and see a demonstration and set up of the said camera room at Sarovar Premiere Hotel.
In this matter, it is alleged in count one that Chanda between May 12, 2020, and October 1, 2022, in Lusaka, jointly and whilst acting together with others unknown, stole a case record No. CRMP/001/2020, the property of the Government of Zambia.
And in count two, Chanda between the same dates, knowing that the case record No. CRMP/001/2020 is or may be required in evidence in judicial proceedings, wilfully did destroy it, with intent thereby to prevent it from being used in evidence.
The court record in question relates to another matter in which Chanda was jointly charged with Intelligent Mobility Solutions board chairman, Walid El Nahas, and former Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) director Zindaba Soko, but a nolle prosequi was entered in that particular case.