MPHWIYO NAMES SHOOTING SUSPECTS

Former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo has identified former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ralph Kasambara and his friend Pika Manondo as two of the five people who approached him at the gate of his house on the night he was shot on September 13 2013.

Kasambara, Pika and his elder brother Dauka, Robert Kadzuwa and Macdonald Kumwembe have pleaded not guilty to charges of allegedly conspiring and attempting to kill Mphwiyo.

In his testimony which took place at the High Court in Lilongwe as well as his Area 43 residence, the scene of the shooting, Mphwiyo said the man holding the gun was flanked by Pika to his left and Kasambara to his right. He said two more people were obscured behind them that he could not identify.

When pressed to explain how he was able to identify the two people in the dark at night time, Mphwiyo said he was able to see the suspected assailants due to a security light on the left-hand side of the fence of his house.

“My Lord, look at those faces and tell me you can miss them? I have known them for years. At the time, I saw people approaching, my first instinct was to see who was coming towards me,” said Mphwiyo, who started testifying at 2.04pmdressed in a navy blue suit.

In the courtroom, Mphwiyo said he was not able to identify the gunman who wore a hood, but later at the scene of his shooting, Mphwiyo identified the gunman as the first accused, who is Kumwembe.

Mphwiyo told the court: “I saw the shiny barrel of what I believe was a gun then I just felt numbness on my jaw. That’s when I realised I had been shot. The second bullet hit me on the lower right side of jaw, what is known as the mandible as I drove into the gate which had not fully opened.”

As he narrated his ordeal at the scene, Mphwiyo’s voice broke and his wife was seen wiping her eyes. He explained that his 13-year-old daughter helped him hold a towel wet with blood as his wife rushed him to Medical Aid Society of Malawi (Masm) Clinic in Area 43.

Mphwiyo said Kasambara, through Pika, Kasambara’s friend Patrick Gadama popularly known as ‘Gada’ and former spokesperson of the People’s Party (PP) Hophmally Makande are individuals who were pressurising him to approve payments to some companies, among them Glens Waterways and Deco/Terrastone which was claiming K9 billion.

He said the Secretary to the Treasury told him not to honour the payments as they were claimed in bad faith.

Mphwiyo told the court that Pika and Gada, sent by Kasambara, went to his house several times where he was told that if he did not make the payment, he would lose his life and they would make it look like a deal gone sour.

But a call from then minister of Information and Civic Education Brown Mpinganjira that he had been informed by Kasambara that he was refusing to approve the payments prompted him to go to Kasambara and tell him that he would not be intimidated.

The locus in quo continued at 11pm yesterday at the request of the prosecution to enable Mphwiyo to demonstrate how he was able to identify his assailant, Kasambara and Pika on the night of his shooting.

Cross-examination of Mphwiyo was expected to start at his house last night and continue at the court today.