Cops used police van to smuggle illegal immigrants
The Mzuzu Magistrate’s Court has started hearing a case in which a top police officer is being accused of abusing a police vehicle to smuggle illegal immigrants from Karonga to Mzimba last week.
Senior superintendent Leonard Daniel Mtokoma, the officer-in-charge for Northern Region Police Mobile Service (PMS), was arrested on April 24 for allegedly instructing head driver Hardwell Majomeka to go to Karonga to collect ‘goods’ which turned out to be 26 Ethiopians.
The court started hearing evidence on Monday, with principal prosecutions officer Jacob Nambiri successfully moving the court to free Majomeka to join seven police officers in line to testify against their detained superior.
Soon afterwards, Sub Inspector Victor Kuyera told the court that on the eve of the arrest, all was calm until Majomeka came to collect a police vehicle MP 2243, saying he had been ordered by his boss.
When pinned by defence lawyer Nicely Msowoya, Kuyera confessed “not doing the reasonable thing” by failing to verify whether Mtokoma really commanded the driver, arguing: “The order was supposed to come through me, but military discipline allows the head driver to take orders directly and just inform the officer on duty.”
However, Majomeka testified that he got K100 000 (US$238) from a Sam to refuel the police vehicle and travel with two civilian suspects.
Majomeka reckoned he did not see anything wrong throughout the trip which climaxed when the two told him they were actually 25 illegal immigrants.
Asked if the task he undertook was lawful, Majomeka said he felt there was nothing unlawful in the deal as the officer-in-charge was at the centre of the deal.
Soon after throwing out bail application by Msowoya, senior resident magistrate Gladys Gondwe adjourned the case to Monday.
The Mzuzu police station is full of corrupt officers who are smuggling illegal immigrants in so many ways, some of the people who are testifying there are also involved in the same business only that they are juniors and they dont use official cars. You can just see by the type of cars they are driving around yet they have house wives,they dont do any other business apart from their normal jobs.The whole police is rotten and very few are working their without dirty hands.