IT guru Chiwoni bail bid rejected:  Malawi High Court theft

February 7, 2015 Alfred Chauwa –Nyasa Times, 46 Comments

Senior Blantyre Resident Magistrate Court on Friday denied bail to Kumbukani Chiwoni, who was arrested on Friday after being suspected of playing a hand into the theft of 15 court hard disk drive from computers.

Chiwoni: Bail refused
Chiwoni: Bail refused

Chiwoni, aged 29, is the IT Manager for the Malawi High Court, according to Blantyre Police.

The items, including CPUs, hardware mother boards, memory chips, heat sinks and hard drives, are suspected to have been stolen  when the High court premises where sealed following the protracted industrial strike judiciary support staff stage to press for salary increment.

Presiding senior resident Magistrate Viva Nyimba told the jam packed court that it will not work within the interest of justice if the court grant bail to Chiwoni.

Nyimba immediately  ordered the Malawi Police Officers to go and conduct thorough search in the house of Chiwoni and that the Police should report the same to the court within the same day.

He then acquitted the security guards who were arrested alongside Chiwoni, saying the guards cannot have the technical expertise to open the computers and know the hard drives.

The court later reconvened at night where the  police reported that they had found only connector cables in the house of Chiwoni house the police said it was not known whether the cables belongs to the High Court Computers.

During the same court night session, Nyimba repeated that giving bail to Chiwoni will jeopardize investigations.

Nyimba then ordered the Malawi Police to conduct further investigation and that they should report back on Monday.

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46 replies on “IT guru Chiwoni bail bid rejected:  Malawi High Court theft”

  1. The unfortunate scenario here is that no evidence no case to answer.all those cases on the hard drives will mean no cases at all.the guy might sue for wrongful arrest.shambles

  4. An IT manager doesn’t need to steal hard drives and motherboards to destroy/steal information. There are other motives behind this.

  5. To me it doesn’t make sense. Something is terribly wrong here. An IT Manager cannot steal hard drives, motherboards and memory chips. What clever IT dudes do is to exchange what they want from computers with scrap and old useless items. The game plan is that computers are seen to be there with all hard drives but they are tampered with. I will have problems to believe Mr Chiwoni was involved. It should be a chain of other people in the courts who connived.

  6. Is it the computers or something sensitive that was stored in the gadgets, otherwise the case should be answered by watchmen. Release the guy unless you tell us otherwise.

  9. This Chiwoni is just a victim of circumstance but from my look of things , he is very free, if he wanted to delete anything from these computers he could have done so without even going into the office where the computers are located,

    Please set the guy free for he is innocent, that is the work of layman who does not understand IT

  12. While linking the missing computer parts to the IT manager seems logical the linkage in this case seems very weak. Otherwise if this type of reasoning was applied to the famous cashgate cases we would have all PSs and directors whose ministries and departments lost money through cash gate implicated and arrested. The police rushed to arrest a person without genuine evidence and now they are trying to find evidence! I feel sorry for the young chap and hope time will let the truth out and he will be set free.

  13. Chiwoni colluded with cash gate thieves to do this. Wamutumayo ampweteketsa mwana. No bail until he returns what he has stolen. Those defending him are also part and parcel of Cashgate beneficiaries.

  14. having a penis doesn’t mean that all men are rapist.because he is a guru in it then no bail? doesn’t need to be a guru in it to remove a hard drive even std5 kid can do that

  15. You who call yourself victor jumbo isn’t there crime in US? What does Obama do? Going around himself to arrest suspects?
    Does this issue have anything to do with quota? You must be very stupid

  16. The truth of the matter is that the disk contained cases dating back to 1990 and the lazy judges took advantage of the strike to get hold of information since people were demanding that judges should be demanding pay equal to their work. Lazy judges.

  17. This is pure office politics. Kumbukani cant stoop so low and steal the said computer parts. His IT proficiency does not in any way
    make him a prime suspect. Someone within High Court is behind this. Its my prayer that God intervenes and set Kumbu free. Sorry though for the pain and humiliation this issue has brought to you and the entire family. What l can assure you is that the truth shall be known.

  20. Aah koma kukhala expert ndiye kuti ndiwe potential thief?? What if his juniors made duplicate keys and did the ungrateful thing? Koma compensation ya boma kuchedwa kuja muzamupepesa bwanji??

    1. The way police and justice works in Malawi sometimes you wonder. You report to police that you have been robbed and you are the first suspect. Someone was almost locked up for reporting theft at his offic.

  21. Munali macompyuta simunachite kuthyoledwa, anthu anatsekula ndi makiyi bwinobwino ndipo chiwoni akuti ndi amene anali ndi makiyi olowera munali macompyutamo, ndiye n’kumati chiyani pamenepa?

  22. This is so lame for such a professional to take hard drives and motherboards in this age and time, I mean of what profit wud he even gain for such cheap stuff knowing his value and capability. Case yoyiphula phula iyi!

  23. ma graduate a pa poly heheheheheheh ndiye aphwanu a sam nawonso matama onse aja amadya zokubazi ndiye zokuba zakezo abale inu tima hard drive tima motherboard ndiyenso ma computer ake a m’boma hehehehehe!!! kumvesa cisoni aciwoni

  27. Another chanco graduate in a theft scandal..a kumbu,mpaka kuba ma hardrive zoona?sacrificing your career for mere hard drives

  28. If found guilty, the nature of the case attracts the maximum sentence of 13 years with no chances of parole. This is a highly sensitive case and the court should trace his call logs the whole syndicate will be uncovered.

  29. First it is highly unlikely the IT Manager did it himself, but what is possible is he connived with someone or provided technical knowhow!

    Second: if the police did not arrest him immediately theft was reported then it was the most stupid thing. For arguments sake, it indeed he did it: does any sensible person think he would keep the computer parts at his house??? Come on, please, give us a break. Unless of course if he is an idiot, but clever as he looks, he certainly would not do that if he was guilty. Searching and re-searching is a waste of time.

    Third, why don`t they simply ask all who had keys to explain there whereabouts during the theft? Denying him bail will be fruitless because you will not find any implicating evidence anyway unless if you squeeze his balls.

    But that said: you mean computers at high court were that insecure? He should be fired for not securing the computers. I mean nowadays there are so many hardware security features to buy. And the system never had backups? Again the IT Manager should get fired for not ensuring secure data backup. How do people get IT Manager jobs in Malawi? This is very worrying!!!

  31. The major problem in Malawi is that people wants to be rich at any cost so they can live a good life at the expense of being honest. Over 75% of population are very poor so much they can not say no to corruption. Corruption is so rampant that anyone can do almost anything else to hold of money. Therefore, I am not surprised about the above story but I pity Malawi as a country where are heading to? What future is there for our children? What is the president doing to stop corruption and put Malawi back on the right track as Kamuzu did economically. Why does Mr president looks like a spectator and not in control of various situations. He is still supporting quota system which I find very difficult to understand him especially knowing that he studied law in America but his studies doesn’t seem to have benefited him at all except once when he acquired power during the elections day and now he seems to have run out of ideas on things that matters to oldinary Malawians. It’s a shame that these things are happening under our president.’s watch . Victor Jumbo, UK

  32. INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.IS HE THE ONLY GUY HOW ABOUT HIS JUNNIORS WHATEVER.I DO NOT AGREE THAT GUARDS NO NUTS ABOUT COMPUTERS.VIVA NYIMBA SHOULD BE SKEPTICAL THE GUARDS MUST EXPLAIN WHO THEY SAW AFTER THE COURT WAS SEALED,WHETHER DAUSI,ME,OR LUTEPO.THE DUDE IS INOCENT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE

  36. Pipo U R not serious but do U realy think and convinced that a whole IT manager can steal such stuff from his own office.- He is a technical man and even if you find 2 drive in his house thus not enough to convict him.

  38. Mwakhomelera bwanji a cash gate pa bail wakuba computer ndi ma hard drive no bail mukulanga a lhomwe

  43. Viva viva viva! Viva a breath of fresh air. He is now even doing the job of the useless police service . If only our judges were like him, most corrupt politicians and all armed robbers would be in jail serving sentences with hard labour to boot

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