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Video of Mabonga inciting ethnic war authentic – police officer
A Digital forensic analyst yesterday told the Lusaka magistrates court that the video he downloaded of Mfuwe member of parliament Maureen Mabonga allegedly inciting civil unrest was authentic.
Mabonga is in Court on two counts of seditious practices.
Between May 25 and May 28, 2024 the lawmaker allegedly incited Easterners to rise in arms against Southerners when she ascribed the disappearance of Petauke Central member of parliament Emmanuel Jay Banda to an ethnic attack on Easterners.
She said the Easterners together with their tribal cousins, the Bembas were in multitudes and could form a ‘tribal pact’ which could outnumber the police.
Detective chief inspector Jonathan Phiri who is based at force headquarters under the Criminal investigations department, Digital Forensic Laboratory told magistrate Trevor Kasanda that on May 29, 2024, detective chief inspector Micheal Ilishebo from anti-frauds unit gave him a letter with a request to extract a video from a provided Facebook link.
He said according to a letter drafted by a Mr Makukwani , an assistant superintendent he was asked to extract a video from the link https://www.facebook.com/share/V/2N16QUM5Q6qWTugc/?mibextid=0FDknk on the PF facebook page.
“I opened google chrome web browser and I keyed in the link in the browser and the link took me to a Facebook page known as Patriot Front-PF Facebook page, where a video was being broadcasted live on May 26,2024 at 14:02hours,”Phiri said.
“By virtual of the link being accessed, it took me to that page I mentioned earlier. It was confirmed that the link was accessible and valid.”
Phiri said he used a Facebook download manager to download the Facebook video and stored it on the Dell forensics work station.
“I verified the file that was downloaded against what was on the Facebook page and I confirmed that the video that I downloaded was exactly with the one on the Facebook page,” he said.
This time around Phiri managed to identify the public figures who addressed the media in the video as Emmanuel Mwamba Zambia’s former ambassador to Ethiopia, Lumezi constituency member of parliament Munir Zulu and Mfuwe member of parliament Maureen Mabonga.
He also gave a description of the clothes that the trio had donned.
Phiri could not be cross examined as Mabonga’s lawyer Leon Lemba asked for an adjournment to today to acquaint himself with the technical language used in the police officer’s report.
Magistrate Kasanda granted the application and adjourned the case to today.
By Mwaka Ndawa
Kalemba July 4, 2024.