Malawi leadership ‘worshiping impunity’, Mtambo says : Chasowa being denied justice
Human rights defenders and the family of Malawi Polytechnic student Robert Chasowa who was murdered by regime agents during the DPP-led government have protested that justice has been delayed and effectively is being denied.
The Chasowa family, led by his father in demanding for justice, hopes to see the case gets to its logical conclusion.
“It is absurd that the country can allow some people get away with crime of murder,” the father of the murdered father.
Centre for Human Rights Rehabilitation (CHRR) executive director Timothy Mtambo has condemned the stalling of Chasowa case as “very depressing.”
Mtambo said civil society was worried with the “leadership that is quite in the face of impunity and such a leadership that is worshiping impunity.”
The United Nations Special committee on Human Rights has bashed the Malawi Government for not prosecuting those involved in the murder of Chasowa.
The Malawi Human Rights Commission, in its recent state of human rights report, also criticised the State for the delays in prosecuting those that killed Chasowa.
But National Police Headquarters chief prosecutor Happy Mkandawire said the file on Chasowa was sent back to police for further investigations.
He said police have already returned the file to Justice Ministry.
“We were supposed just to refine certain aspects of the case and we have sent the file back to the Director of Public Prosecutions [DPP],” said Mkandawire as quoted in the press.
Chasowa, who studied engineering, was found dead at the college campus in Blantyre on September 24, 2011.
Findings from the Commission of Inquiry on his death named Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Director of Special Events Noel Masangwi who is now a member of Parliament and Director of Youths Lewis Ngalande as some of prime suspects in the death of the student.
The report also implicated several senior police officers including Rodney Jose the deputy police chief, police officer Stanford Horea and renowned boxing promoter Mike Chitenje.
Police said he had jumped to his death from a five-story building and produced bogus suicide not as evidence.
Supreme court of Appeal judge Andrew Nyirenda, who chaired the commission, said:”The ultimate findings of the commission is that Robert Chasowa was murdered.”
He said the findings were based on entire testimony of witnesses, which he said “in some instances were lucid and unmistaken.”
Nyirenda said a post-mortem examination report enabled the commission, which included a pathologist, “to determine, with a degree of certainty, the cause and circumstances of Robert Chasowa’s death.”
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