APM censured over Bingu poisoning claims

Legal and political experts in the country have censured former president Peter Mutharika, fondly known as APM, over his remarks that his brother the late Bingu was poisoned in 2012.

Speaking on Sunday during a press briefing he held at his retirement home in Mangochi, Mutharika alleged that Malawi’s former president “Bingu was poisoned and something was put in his wine juice at 8am and at 10 he had died.

“It is the fact and I know the people, but let us leave it here,” he said.

But his comments contradict the 2013 findings of the Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances that led to the death of Bingu wa Mutharika which show that he died on April 5 2012 on the way to Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) in Lilongwe.

Reads part of the inquiry: “On the issue of cause of death, the commission has concluded from the evidence before it that the president died of cardiac arrest due to cardiac arrhythmia [irregular beating of the heart]”.

However, in an interview yesterday, private practice lawyer John-Gift Mwakhwawa, who also heads the Law Faculty at the Catholic University of Malawi, said the remarks have the potential to incite violence.

He said: “If that is the claim, it has legal implications.

“First, it was possibly a treasonous act because Bingu was a head of State. Therefore, you may be investigating issues surrounding treason.”

Mwakhwawa called on law enforcement agencies such as the police to investigate Mutharika’s claims.

“When did he know about that [the poisoning]? What did he do about it and if he didn’t do anything, himself being at one point head of State.

“If the claims are baseless, the country will look at him as someone who is trying to incite contempt and violence.”

University of Malawi’s law professor Garton Kamchedzera said Mutharika was simply trying to use his brother’s death for political advantage.

He said: “It is important to understand the former president not just as a person who lost a brother, but also as a politician. When speaking about this, I don’t think he thought about the law and its implications.

“What he said has legal and political implications in that it will boomerang on him in terms of his credibility.”

Kamchedzera wondered why Mutharika, who claimed to have known that his brother died at 10am, allowed the body to be flown to South Africa for further treatment.

“Mutharika had an opportunity to testify before the commission, and did he commit perjury?” he asked.

Blantyre-based political analyst Ernest Thindwa said Mutharika was looking for public sympathy.

“Bingu died as head of State and the nation has an interest in the security of a sitting president and security agencies should engage Mutharika on the claims to tell the nation what he knows,” he said.