Court adjourns Muluzi’s case to March 2019
The High Court in Blantyre has again adjourned to March next year a case in which former president Bakili Muluzi is being accused of diverting K1.7 billion of public money into his personal account.
The case has two files— criminal case number 1 of 2009 and criminal case number 2 of 2009. However, the latter was pended for the courts to handle the first matter and was set down by the High Court for hearing after it last came to court about nine years ago.
For the nine years, the case had been dormant and yesterday proceedings only went on for less than 30 minutes before Lilongwe-based High Court judge Chifundo Kachale, sitting in Blantyre, further deferred it to next year.
The matter came for trial but it was evident that both parties were not ready to proceed when the State, represented by two Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) lawyers—Victor Chiwala and Clement Mwala—sought an early adjournment.
Earlier, lawyers from both parties met the judge in the chambers before coming into the open court.
In the court, the State said in its plea that the matter had stayed long without coming to court as such it needed ample time to retrace and interview its witnesses before coming for mention.
The defence team comprising private practice lawyers Tamando Chokhotho and Jai Banda did not object to the request, which they described as “reasonable”.
Judge Kachale then adjourned the case to March 8 2019.
In an interview after the adjournment, Chiwala said they were happy with the court’s direction.
In 2006, the State, during the late Bingu wa Mutharika’s reign, dragged Muluzi and his personal secretary Lyness Whiskey, to answer charges of corruption on the money which government alleged was public funds diverted to the former president’s personal account.
Muluzi, 74, was the first multiparty president and ruled Malawi from 1994 to 2004. n
