The High Court of Malawi Financial Crimes Division has rejected a bail application for Chinese Lin Yunhua, convicted of wildlife crimes and money laundering and wondered why the State supported his release.
In a judgement delivered in Lilongwe on September 16 2026, Judge Redson Kapindu further raised concern over proposed bail conditions that would have required Lin to finance his own monitoring by police, warning that such an arrangement could create a two-tier bail system in which wealthy suspects can effectively buy their way out of remand.
During the bail application, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) agreed to conditions proposed by Lin to secure his release, but the judge said the State failed to adequately explain why it was supporting bail for a person it had previously described as a serious flight risk.
“If they [the State] still believe that he is a flight risk, then the State should have clearly explained the justification for, in one breath, saying that the accused person is a flight risk, and in the same breath saying he should be released on bail,” said Kapindu.
The judge also noted that both the High Court and Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal previously determined that Yunhua posed a flight risk.
He said if the State had changed its position, it should have expressly stated under oath, through an affidavit, that Lin was no longer considered a flight risk.
Lin further offered to meet the costs associated with police monitoring, including transportation and officers’ allowances.
“He goes as far as proposing and the State agrees to this, that he bears the transportation costs associated with police involvement as well as paying necessary allowances for the officers responsible,” Kapindu said.
The judge questioned whose interests the State would be serving if an accused person was paying allowances to the security officers responsible for monitoring him.
While describing the proposed monitoring system as innovative, Kapindu said Lin was an unsuitable candidate for piloting an arrangement that has never been used in Malawi because of his established flight-risk status.
“The consequences of discovering the weaknesses of an untested monitoring arrangement only after such a person has absconded from the country would be obvious and potentially irreversible,” reads the ruling.
The judge said the court did not rule out innovative forms of bail supervision in an appropriate case, but maintained that Lin was not suitable for such a pilot.
Kapindu further questioned what he described as the State’s apparent reluctance to proceed with the prosecution.
The judge dismissed Lin’s application and ordered that he remain on remand at Dedza Prison pending the conclusion of the criminal proceedings.
He set November 16 and 17 2026 for continuation of the trial.
When contacted, Lin’s lawyer Powell Nkhutabasa declined to comment on the ruling or possible next steps.
ACB lawyer Crispin Khunga asked for more time to comment.
However, the ACB previously told the court that it had lined up 16 witnesses to prove the corruption case.
Lin was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by the Chief Resident Magistrate’s Court in Lilongwe in 2021 for wildlife crimes and money laundering. He was pardoned by former president Lazarus Chakwera in 2025 but remains on remand in connection with the corruption case.
The ACB alleges that in 2019, while on remand, Yunhua offered K30 million and undertook to complete construction of an officer-in-charge’s house at Maula Prison as an inducement for Aaron Ganyavu Kaunda to engage the magistrate who was presiding over his wildlife and money-laundering case.
The bureau further alleges that in 2022 and 2023 while serving his sentence, Lin persuaded prison officials to leave the prison to buy farm inputs and other items and to visit his house in Area 9, Lilongwe.
