Malawi Home Affairs Minister risks arrest

The Mzuzu Magistrate’s Court has summoned Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security Paul Chibingu and chief immigration officer Hudson Mankhwala to explain how they allowed the deportation of an Ethiopian national who was answering charges before the court.

The two, including three others, face arrest if the court is satisfied that they committed an offence by issuing and executing a deportation order without an accompanying certificate from the court.

The Ethiopian national, Basha Adenew, was co-accused alongside two Malawians Fred Chim’bwabwa and Alex Madeya for allegedly aiding and abetting illegal entry of nine Ethiopians who entered Malawi through Songwe border in Karonga in a hearse belonging to Chim’bwabwa.

In his defence, Chim’bwabwa claimed Adenew hired his vehicle in May to transport relatives to Dzaleka Refugee Camp ostensibly to attend a funeral not knowing that the people were illegal immigrants.

First grade magistrate Cuthbert Phiri said yesterday the deportation of Adenew when the court had issued a warrant of arrest smacked of corruption by the minister, Mankhwala, the regional immigration officer, the police officer who arrested the Ethiopian and the immigration officer tasked with bringing him before court.

Phiri ordered that the four officers should appear before court on August 18 and he would set a date for the minister to appear in court to explain the circumstances leading to Adenew’s deportation.

Documents in our possession indicate that the court issued a warrant of arrest on June 19, 2014, but soon after his arrest on July 21, 2014, Chibingu signed his deportation order on July 26, 2014.

“You are hereby directed to arrest the said Basha Adenew and to produce him before this court in execution of this your warrant and herein fail not,” the arrest warrant reads.

But citing powers conferred on him by Section 39 (1) of the Immigration Act, Chibingu signed the deportation order, saying: “I am satisfied that it is in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health that you, the said Basha Adenew, be deported from Malawi.”

Chibingu gave Adenew 48 hours after being served with the order to leave the country.

The court has since discharged Chim’bwabwa who was being represented by lawyer Nicely Msowoya.