Court denies Chasowa murder suspects bail

The High Court in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, on Tuesday denied bail to two men suspected of playing a role in the murder of fourth-year Malawi Polytechnic student Robert Chasowa.

Judge McLean Kamwambe said he was convinced the police have established strong links between the two, Geoffrey Bottoman and Peter Petros Tembo.

Kamwambe had on August 6 2012 warned he was going to release the two if police were not going to come up with concrete affidavit evidence to justify why the two could not be released on bail.

The State presented that evidence on August 20 2012.

State lawyer Tilly Likomwa, presenting the additional evidence on August 20, told the court that the State established that the two picked Chasowa from Polytechnic to an unknown place where they brutally killed him and dumped him at Polytechnic later.

Likomwa said they have witnesses who were aware of Bottoman and Tembo’s activities concerning Chasowa.

She told the court: “The applicants [of the bail] were on the run outside the jurisdiction [Malawi] for some months until their resources dwindled and when they came back, they were arrested.”

She prayed for their continued detention to enable the State to finalise their investigations.

But lawyer for the two, Chancy Gondwe, argued that there was no evidence against his clients and that an arrest pending investigations was an abuse of the criminal justice machinery.

In his ruling, Kamwambe said there was evidence that Bottoman and Tembo were at large for sometime after the murder and are likely to flee if given an opportunity now that they face a serious charge of murder.

Kamwambe said it would be unwise of him to grant bail when investigations are underway and considering that the offence of murder is serious, requiring severe punishment.

Chasowa was found dead on September 24 2011.

A commission of inquiry appointed to investigate circumstances surrounding the political activist Chasowa is yet to come up with its findings.