High Court warns Joshua Chisa Mbele for ignoring a court order: Faces jail

The Lilongwe High Court has warned social and political commentator Joshua Chisa Mbele that he faces imprisonment for ignoring a court order on his defamation matter against Pastor Nick Chakwera.

In a civil case number 259 of 2021 before Justice Kenyatta Nyirenda, the court will be moved on the 16th of November at 9 O’clock in an open court where Mbele risk being jailed for unspecified period.

A few months ago, the High Court ordered South Africa based engineer and business person Joshua Chisa Mbele to publicly apologise to Chakwera by publishing in the daily newspapers a written apology to run for a month for injuring the latter’s reputation and for assassinating his character in public.

The court also ordered Mbele to publish the apology on his Facebook page, an outlet he used to defame Chakwera.

However, Mbele did apologise on Facebook but ignored the court order on publishing the same in the Daily Times and The Nation Newspapers.

Subsequently, Pastor Chakwera ‘forgiven’ Mbele and withdrew his demand for damages but as the procedure in law demands in civil suits, Mbele who had no defence to his case, had to pay his and Chakwera’s legal costs pegged at K3 million Kwacha.

The court has ordered Mbele to make a public apology for the damages he caused on Nick Chakwera through his Facebook post before the set date or face the consequences.

According to a court document seen by this publication, Mbele’s public apology must be published in the dailies, The Nation and The Daily Times newspapers twice every week for four consecutive weeks from 4th August, a thing he failed to comply.

The social and political commentator was also been ordered to permanently delete the said defamatory post from his Facebook wall and he was also been told to make another apology on his same Facebook wall.

Chisa Mbele issued an apology on his Facebook Page and he had promised to publish apologies in both The Nation & Times Newspapers as per Court Order.

However, he failed to comply as he did not apologise in the two newspaper forcing the court to take another step.

In April this year, Mbele alleged that Martin Mainja, one of the suspects in the abuse of Covid-19 funds, is a business partner of Nick Chakwera and that Nick was also involved in the covidgate scandal.

He also alleged that Mainja and Chakwera were irregularly awarded business opportunities by the Office of the President, Cabinet Parliament, Chancellor College, Malawi Prison and Ministry of Health.

Following this, Chakwera through his legal counsel Panji Chirwa  dragged Mbele to court over what was described as defamatory and character assassination Facebook post.

Chisa Mbele failed to prove his allegations before the court and did not provide any evidence to exonerate himself.

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