ACB to parade 8 witnesses in judges bribery case

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has said it will parade eight prosecution witnesses  to testify  in the alleged bribery case against business mogul Thomson Mpinganjira who  is accused of allegedly offering a bribe to judges who presided over the historic presidential election case at the High Court which sat as the Constitutional Court.

Mpinganjira, who on Friday appeared before Justice Dorothy DeGabrielle of the High Court in Blantyre, faces charges of offering advantage to a public officer contrary to Section 94(2) of the Corrupt Practices Act and attempting to induce Justices Tembo and Healy Potani to exercise their function corruptly, among others.

ACB director Reyneck Matembasaid all five judges—Healey Potani, Dingiswayo Madise, Redson Kapindu, Ivy Kamanga and Mike Tembo—will testify in court alongside four investigators from the graft-busting body.

“First to be paraded was Justice Michael Tembo, who also presented to the court the recordings of the conversations he had with the accused. Second prosecution witness will be Justice Healy Potani, third witness will be Justice Dr Redson Kapindu, fourth witness Justice Ivy Kamanga and the final witness will be Justice Dingiswayo Madise.

“These are the witnesses who were on the panel of the reference constitutional court case, but we have three more witnesses who are our officers, so in total we have eight prosecution witnesses” said Matemba.

When the case returned to court on Friday, the first witness (Justice Michael Tembo) presented two telephone conversation recordings of himself and Mpinganjira.

Tembo told the Court that he believes the idea to bribe the Judges was hatched by some  Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) senior officials and coordinated by some lawyers of the respondents in the election case.

He further disclosed the accused wanted to establish from him whether the money, in excess of K100 million, had reached the judges.

However, one of the recordings was not audible enough and the Judge presiding the case has directed the Bureau to identify individuals to transcribe the audio and present the readable copy when the case returns court on 12 November.

Among others, Mpinganjira is charged with offering advantage to a public officer contrary to Section 94 (2) of the Corrupt Practices Act and attempting to induce Justices Tembo and Potani to exercise their function corruptly.

But Mpinganjira made applications to the court for a  plea bargain—an arrangement where prosecution and defence discuss a mutually satisfactory way to dispose a case.

Mpinganjira was arrested in January this year and is accused of attempting to bribe the Constitutional Court judges allegedly to rule in favour of former president Peter Mutharika.

On February 3, the five-judge panel nullified the presidential election results, declared that DPP’s Peter Mutharika was not duly elected and ordered a fresh election as prayed by first petitioner Saulos Chilima (UTM Party) and second petitioner Lazarus Chakwera (Malawi Congress Party.

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