Mistrust, tea and missing phones: Inside the ex-spy chief’s bombshell Chilima crash testimony

Former National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director General Dokani Ngwira has delivered explosive testimony to the Commission of Inquiry, insisting the late Vice-President Saulos Chilima never posed the slightest threat to former President Lazarus Chakwera — despite swirling rumours of political rivalry between the two men.

Ngwira was grilled on whether the intelligence agency had deliberately targeted Chilima, viewing him as a political danger to Chakwera’s grip on power. But he flatly dismissed the suggestion, insisting the relationship between the two leaders was warm and cordial — revealing the pair would even sit down and share tea together.

The former spy boss also lifted the lid on Malawi’s intelligence protocols, confirming the law requires the NIS to provide security support to the Vice-President — but stunningly clarified that no permanent intelligence officers were ever assigned to guard Chilima personally.

In a dramatic twist, Ngwira dropped a bombshell claim of his own — telling the commission that while certain information remains off-limits due to national security, he believes the individual who leaked disturbing photographs from the crash site was affiliated with the Alliance for Democracy.

He remained cagey, however, on whether NIS officers had been stationed at Mzuzu Airport on the day of the tragedy, noting the airport is barely operational most of the time.

Ngwira went on to expose a troubling institutional rift, revealing that despite the NIS providing security to senior government figures, the agency does not directly oversee the Office of the Vice-President — a politically sensitive arrangement he said has bred deep mistrust between the two offices ever since the country’s transition to multiparty democracy.

The revelations came as the Parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the catastrophic Chikangawa plane crash — which claimed the lives of Chilima and eight others — resumed hearings this afternoon in its quest to finally establish the truth behind the tragedy.

Ngwira, continuing his evidence before the committee, insisted his office had no involvement whatsoever in planning the late Vice-President’s fateful trip to Nkhatabay, though he confirmed he was aware Chilima was travelling there to attend the funeral of the late Ralph Kasambara.

He then took MPs through the harrowing timeline of that day — revealing he received a phone call at around 11am on 10 June informing him the aircraft carrying the Vice-President and others had vanished.

Ngwira said he wasted no time alerting then Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, who immediately ordered an emergency meeting to brief then President Chakwera on the unfolding crisis.

That high-level briefing, he revealed, was attended by top brass including then Malawi Police Service Inspector General Merlyne Yolamu and then Malawi Defence Force Commander Paul Valentino Phiri.

In a crucial detail for investigators, Ngwira disclosed that the initial breakthrough in the search came when a mobile phone belonging to a medical officer aboard the military aircraft registered on a telecommunications tower in Chikangawa — a vital clue that helped guide the desperate search and rescue mission.

He confirmed once again that Chakwera scrapped his planned trip to the Bahamas entirely, choosing instead to remain and personally oversee the frantic efforts to locate the missing plane.

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