Battle for Mutharika’s estate: Callista wants solo management
The wrangle between late former president Bingu wa Mutharika’s widow, Callista Chimombo Mutharika, and his biological children has taken a new twist. The widow and former First Lady sought a court permission to manage the deceased’s president’s Ndata estate and all interests at court.
The former First Lady contends that Ndata Palace – the opulent aCasa Blanca Manor – is a matrimonial home she helped with building supervision, interior design and decoration.
However, Mutharika’s children, Duwa Mutharika-Mubaira, Tapiwa and their brother Madalitso quickly rushed to the courts through their lawyer, Alfred Majamanda representing Bineth Trust trustees, to get an injunction against the court order.
“Yes it is true that Callista Mutharika got permission from the courts as we heard yesterday afternoon and my clients advised me to seek a court injunction,” said the lawyer.
He added that the injunction seeks to avail time for an informed court decision.
The Mutharika’s have been engaged in a physical, verbal, and media war over property in billions left behind by Mutharika who died of a cardiac arrest on April 7, paving way for a new leadership but leaving behind a struggle for riches between the widow and his family.
Earlier, Callista was also engaged in a monetary showdown against Peter Mutharika, the late leader’s brother, and was reported to have collected millions in dollars which he shared with Duwa, but months down the line she instructed police to bar the children from Ndata Palace, prompting them to seek sympathy through the press and the courts.
This is the second development that have seen the family drag each other once again into the corridors of the legal machinery.
Callista is survived with no child from the deceased first citizen, who bore the three children with the former first wife, late First Lady Ethel Mutharika who died years back.
Mutharika is buried in the same Mpumulo wa Bata ‘mausoleum’ he constructed for Ethel in the Ndata grounds in Thyolo.
