Court gives ACB lifeline
The High Court of Malawi has dismissed former Police Inspector General (IG) George Kainja’s challenge of his arrest in a corruption case linked to United Kingdom- based businessperson Zuneth Sattar.
High Court Judge Redson Kapindu’s judgement delivered in his chambers in Lilongwe yesterday in effect means the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is now free to proceed with the case.
In an interview after the ruling, ACB chief legal and prosecutions officer Imran Saidi said the graft-busting agency will now proceed with the matter in the best way it deems fit.
He said some of the grounds in Kainja’s application for a judicial review of his June 23 2022 arrest the court dismissed included arguments that the court of public opinion had already judged the former top cop and found him in the wrong.
Through his lawyers, Kainja also submitted that ACB erred to give its report to President Lazarus Chakwera, but Saidi said the court ruled that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing and that no such report was attached and presented in court as evidence.
Saidi also said Kainja further argued that the bureau should have summoned him instead of arresting him but the court disagreed.
He said: “The defence also argued that the bureau was supposed to have been supervised by the Director of Public Prosecutions and that the Attorney General was also supposed to have been checking on the actions by ACB, but the court ruled that this was not true.”
In a separate interview at the court, Kainja’s lawyer Gift Nankhuni said the court dismissed all their six grounds on the basis that the arguments can be raised during the substantive criminal trial itself instead of filing a separate application.
“The judge has summarily dismissed all the grounds, so the matter will proceed in the magistrate’s court or it depends on whether ACB would want to commit it to the High Court,” he said.
Kainja was arrested days after the President said in a national address in June 2022 that the ACB report found that he was among the 84 individuals who allegedly received money from Sattar in 2021.
The bureau purportedly said ACB had investigated 13 of the 84 individuals and concluded that they conducted themselves corruptly.
Consequently, the President sacked Kainja and suspended State Residences chief of staff Prince Kapondamgaga and former chairperson of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority John Suzi-Banda over the matter. He also withdrew delegated powers from Vice-President Saulos Chilima in connection with the same.
The bureau indicated in a statement that it arrested Kainja for allegedly receiving an advantage from Sattar and managing director of Xaviar Limited to influence a procurement contract reference number MPS/SB/16/04/2021 to supply 350 000 food ration packs worth $7 875 000 to Malawi Police Service by unlawfully initiating a requisition of the procurement on instruction from Sattar.
The investigations conducted by the bureau established that Kainja solicited an advantage in form of a vehicle and $8 000 from Sattar for influencing the award of the contract to supply the food ration packs.
In a related development, Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Frank Kapanda in July last year granted a stay order restraining ACB from commencing criminal proceedings against former minister of Lands Kezzie Msukwa pending appeal of his application for leave of judicial review of his arrest.
The former Cabinet minister was arrested in December 2021 alongside businessperson Ashok Nair on corruption allegations relating to land deals with Sattar.
The Supreme Court observed that the Notice of Appeal lodged by Msukwa and Nair raised serious issues of law that need to be attended to by the Supreme Court.
Prior to filing the appeal, Msukwa had his judicial review application dismissed by Kapindu.
