DPP will not ‘free’ Cashgate confessors
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale says she will not trade confessors of Cashgate with non-custodial sentences.
She was reacting to offers by some suspects to spill the beans about the systematic plunder of public funds in exchange for leniency or turning into State witnesses.
But Kachale, in a press statement published in The Nation on December 18 2014 said those who want to make confessions must consult their lawyers and do so voluntarily.
She said it was a mockery to the suffering Malawians have endured as a consequence of the accused persons’ role to plunder public money if her office was to accept defence proposal to trade confessions with non-custodial sentences.
Reads the DPP’s statement: “It ought to be noted that all accused persons have the right to remain silent and my office and the investigating and prosecuting authorities will not force or induce anyone to make any confession.
“However, as individuals are free to waive their right to remain silent, those that want to divulge their version of events should only do so voluntarily and it is advisable that they must have consulted their lawyers prior to engaging law enforcement offices.”
Kachale said the major reason for her office not to consider the confessions was because the procedural framework for plea bargaining is supposed to be set down by the Chief Justice and so far, such plea bargaining rules have been promulgated.
She said for this reason, there was no legal framework within which any plea bargaining arrangement can be made.
Some accused persons, including chief Cashgate suspect Oswald Lutepo have written the Attorney General’s office and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) proposing to seal deals with the State.
About K20 billion grew wings from public coffers within six months of Joyce Banda’s reign, April to September 2013, as was revealed by a forensic audit report by a British company, Baker Tilly.
Following the Cashgate revelations, donors withdrew aid and Malawi has been operating on a zero-aid budget, a situation that has caused misery to Malawians economically.
