Atupele dismisses al-Bashir, Sata links

United Democratic Front (UDF) presidential hopeful Atupele Muluzi has dismissed allegations that his campaign is being financed by International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan.

Over the past week, social media has been awash with stories claiming that Atupeles’ campaign is being bankrolled by al-Bashir.

In an interview yesterday, Atupele not only denied the allegations, but called those spreading them “detractors”

He said: “There is no truth, that’s sensationalism and they are trying to divert attention from the real issues. It is quite unfortunate and not true.”

Political analyst Blessings Chinsinga, despite saying that there is nothing wrong for any presidential candidate to get funds from anywhere, Malawi needs to have a legal framework to prevent such instances as a county’s foreign policies and relations could be compromised by such an image.

“Well, this has not been proven to be true and even if it were, there is nothing wrong as Malawi does not have a legislative framework on this,” he said.

Omar al-Bashir is currently wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

In 2012, President Joyce Banda shifted the African Union (AU) venue, when it was announced that the Sudanese President would visit the country.

However, former president the late Bingu wa Mutharika hosted al-Bashir and the ICC referred Malawi to the United Nations (UN) security council.