THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Gilbert Phiri has refused to grant Patriots for Economic Progress president Sean Tembo permission to privately prosecute UPND secretary general Batuke Imenda, who has been accused of using hate speech against Archbishop of Lusaka Alick Banda.
In a response letter to Mr Tembo’s request, Mr Phiri said he could not grant the plea because he had not seen any evidence showing that Mr Imenda had used a Computer System when he committed the alleged offence as required by Section 65 of the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act No.2 of 2021 of the Laws of Zambia.
But Mr Tembo told court today that he has since collected data which he presented to Mr Phiri to show that Mr Imenda, indeed, used a Computer System when he committed the alleged offence.
This is in a case Mr Tembo sued Mr Imenda over use of hate speech when he purportedly referred to the Archbishop of Lusaka Alick Banda as “Lucifer of Zambia”.
Allegations are that on May 28, last year, Mr Imenda, in an audio circulation from a press briefing held at the UPND secretariat, allegedly uttered and published hate language against Archbishop Alick Banda.
It is alleged that the accused referred to the Archbishop as “the Lucifer of Zambia”.
Mr Tembo then wrote to the DPP seeking permission to privately prosecute the ruling party’s chief executive officer.
When the case came up before Lusaka magistrate Exildah Chanda, Mr Tembo told the court that he had written the DPP seeking permission to privately prosecute Mr Imenda, who was in court with his lawyer.
He said on last Wednesday, January 17, the DPP responded to his request and informed him that he(Mr Phiri) had not seen any evidence showing that Mr Imenda had used a Computer System when he committed the alleged offence.
Mr Tembo explained that on Monday, January 22, he wrote back to Mr Phiri and further enclosed a Flash Drive with video evidence showing that Mr Imenda used a Computer System when he committed the alleged hate speech.
He further told the court that he had four witnesses to aid his case before applying for an adjournment to give chance to the DPP to decide whether he is going to give consent, in view of the fact that the issue relating to evidential proof that Mr Imenda used a Computer System when he committed the alleged offense, had been addressed.
The case was adjourned to February 8.
(Mwebantu)
I keep forgetting that this baboon is still breathing.