Lawyer wants suspected smugglers to sell confiscated maize

Lawyer for traders whose trucks were impounded while hauling maize in the border districts of Karonga and Chitipa says he will petition courts to allow them sell the grain.

Victor Gondwe of Tennyson and Associates said this in an interview after President Peter Mutharika lifted a ban on maize exportation on Monday.

He argued that the end of the ban technically means that the maize can be sold before it rots.

The senior resident magistrate’s court is expected to hear the cases next week.

But Gondwe said: “The traders have to benefit from their produce. Before the court sits, we will have made our application to have the traders sell the maize.”

The court released the maize to the traders for safe-keeping.

Gondwe said it is up to the State to proceed with the case in which he argued that the police violated the traders’ rights as the truckloads were impounded within the country.

However, Northern Region Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya said the case still stands as the truckloads were captured before the ban had been lifted.

In March, Mutharika ordered soldiers to seal borders to stop an outflow of maize as the country was coming from a two-year food crisis. n