Court fines PP’s Youth Director for ‘trespassing’ at Malawi Police

The Blantyre Magistrates Court has ordered People’s Party’s director of youth Chapitapansi Lemani to pay a fine of K10,000 for trespassing on police premises.

Lemani was arrested on Thursday last week and later released on bail for parking his vehicle at Blantyre Police Station without permission. He parked his car on a slot reserved for officer in-charge.

He was summoned to report at Southern Region Police headquarters on Monday and he appeared in court on Tuesday morning where he was ordered to pay a fine of K10,000 on the charge of trespassing.

Lemani claimed in an interview with Nyasa Times that he asked for permission to park his car at the police station, but was not told that the space he opted for was reserved for the station’s officer in-charge.

“When I returned I found that the police had deflated the tyres of my car and accused me of trespassing,” he said.

Lemani said he decided to park his car at the police station because he felt it would be safer, saying: “There is high insecurity in the country, so I thought the police would be the safest place to park my car as I was going away for a while”.

Lemani was once arrested last year on allegations that he led a group of assailants who attacked Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) director of field operations, Ben Phiri.

Phiri, who is also special assistant to President Peter Mutharika, was assaulted at Sunbird Mount Soche in Blantyre in March, 2014. He claimed to have lost K200,000 in the process.

Phiri later on dropped the case.