SA witness testifies in Bushiri extradition case
Defence lawyers in the extradition case involving Enlightened Christian Gathering leader Prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary yesterday took turns in asking South African witness Sibongile Mnzinyathi on the whereabouts of the original copy of the extradition request.
The lawyers, Wapona Kita and Alicia Roos who previously represented the Bushiri’s in South Africa, asked for proof of the extradition request. They said if the document does not exist, then there is no reason for the case to proceed.
According to the lawyers, based on all the documents served and the court files, there is no original copy which by law the court needs to have.
Said Kita: “Do you have the extraction request to rely on? What copies do you have and when were they served?”
But State lawyer Dziko Malunda objected to the line of questioning, saying it was not relevant as the witness was ordered to come to court to explain about his failure to appear before it in the morning.
On her part Roos said: “Does the document exist and where is it? If it doesn’t exist, then why are we here?”
The witness, who is the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for South Africa’s Gauteng Province, arrived at the court seven hours after the scheduled time of the hearing and he informed the court that he supposedly delayed when connecting his flight in Kenya.
Said Mnzinyathi: “We arrived after 8am Sunday at the airport in Nairobi and met a chaotic situation, many people like us had no boarding passes, everyone was getting agitated, and we moved from counter to counter, pillar to post and later we were told we couldn’t fly to Lilongwe and were taken to a hotel.”
But Kita told the court that the South African Government deliberately and systematically flew the witness using an indirect flight just to delay the hearing, arguing that there are other three options of direct flights to Malawi.
He also informed the court that the witness was in the country last week to, among others, consult with Malunda and wondered as to why the witness was still asking for an adjournment to prepare.
Said Kita: “I want to show that there is more to this adjournment, they are not ready, the trip was approved on December 6 and you still came to court late.”
Malunda has since applied to the court to adjourn the matter to either February end or early March 2024, and the Chief Resident Magistrate’s Court is expected to rule on the matter today.
