Mayaya, others spend night in police cell
In a typical case of so near yet so far, human rights defender Billy Mayaya and his two co-accused yesterday spent the night in a police cell due to lack of a printer to print their bail verdict.
It transpired that the custodian of the keys to the ‘printing room’ at the Lilongwe Magistrate’s Court had already knocked off by the time the court wanted to deliver its verdict last evening.
Mayaya, 52, was arrested near Area 18 Roundabout in Lilongwe alongside Lackson Million, 48, and ChimwemweSipoko, 47, for conducting a public demonstration without authority, contrary to Section 108 of the Police Act, according to Malawi Police Service (MPS).
However, in court, their charge sheet also included unlawful assembly as another case against them contrary to Section 71 as read with Section 72 of the Penal Code.
The three pleaded not guilty to both offences.
They were, however, left to wait longer for their fate after applying for bail.
The lack of printer rendered both the defence and the prosecution teams somehow helpless as the magistrate needed to print out her verdict before reading it out in court.
Reacting to his clients’ spending the night in the cooler, defence lawyer Gift Katundu sounded to have understood the circumstances.
He said: “No, I don’t think anyone is to blame for this. This is the way things are and we have to accept it. Actually, the court has done tremendously well. Basically it was late.”
According to Katundu, the court will reconvene this morning at nine O’clock where the fate of the trio will be known as regards their bail application.
The prosecution, led by police prosecutor MojaPhiri had earlier asked the court to consider denying the accused bail; arguing the trio need to be in police custody for at least 30 days for the State to conclude its investigations and to prevent the trio from tampering with witnesses; among other arguments.
But the defence strongly thwarted the fears, saying the court would set a bad precedence in the country’s judicial system if it were to decide with such lines of arguments.
Mayaya and his colleagues organised the demonstration to petition authorities over prolonged power rationing being implemented by Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom).
Escom has cited low water levels in Lake Malawi and its sole outlet, Shire River, home to 90 percent of Escom’s hydro-electric power plants.
In the wake of the rationing, some consumers are having as low as four hours of electricity per day while industries, through Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI), have complained that the development has reduced their output to between 40 and 80 percent.
Escom announced in August that water flow in Shire River is only allowing it to produce 200 megawatts (MW) against a maximum generation capacity of 351.75MW topped up by 10MW diesel-powered plant installed in Lilongwe. Thus, the power utility has had to extend loadshedding to cover the deficit.
