Buluma’s phone ready for defence
Chief resident magistrate Patrick Chirwa has restricted defence lawyers in the case involving former minister of energy Newton Kambala and two others, to alleged WhatsApp messages between National Oil Company of Malawi deputy chief executive officer Hellen Buluma and the accused.
Buluma is a key witness in a case where Kambala alongside former presidential aide Chris Chaima Banda and Aford president Enoch Chihana are accused of attempting to influence the procurement of fuel.
Last month, Chirwa ordered that the defence should have access to Buluma’s phone to help authenticate the WhatsApp messages she tendered in court as evidence.
But the ACB refused to grant the defence access to the gadget citing security concerns, including personal privacy, forcing the defence to raise a concern to the chief resident magistrate.
In his order, dated February 9 2022, Chirwa has once again allowed the defence to access the gadget at the ACB office in the presence of the State.
Each of the accused team has been allowed to have three representatives, including an information technology (IT) expert, and the same opportunity has been extended to the State.
The court will also have a clerk and an IT expert attending the inspection process.
But Chirwa has restricted the inspection only to the contested WhatsApp messages and nothing more, and Buluma has to be present only for purposes of granting passwords to the gadget if there are any.
Reads the judgement in part: “That what is to be inspected on the gadget shall be limited to WhatsApp conversations purported to have been between PW2 [Buluma] and the concerned accused persons.
“That no IT expert shall be allowed to tamper with the gadget, and, for the avoidance of doubt, they shall not be allowed to enter into the operating systems of the gadget.”
Last month, Buluma, who is a second witness in the case, took to the witness box for three days where she alleged that she was receiving pressure from Kambala to favour certain suppliers.
She tendered a document, as evidence, which contained alleged WhatsApp messages between her and Kambala.
But the defence objected to the evidence, saying it was secondary and its tendering needed to follow procedure, to which the magistrate agreed.
As a plan B, the State handed over a phone to Buluma in which the messages are contained to be tendered as evidence, but again the defence objected to the idea and asked for full access to the gadget to authenticate the messages.
The State could not agree to the proposal on security grounds such that Chirwa had to make an order to allow the defence access to the gadget at the ACB offices.
Following the arrest of the trio by police last year, President Lazarus Chakwera dropped Kambala from Cabinet and also dismissed Chaima-Banda as a presidential aide.
