Police confirm quizzing Kalirani on witchcraft scandal
Malawi Police Service says they indeed summoned former Health Minister Dr Jean Kalilani and quizzed her on allegations that she sought black magic from a witchdoctor in Lilongwe to stage murder through witchcraft on three Cabinet ministers.
Nyasa Times earlier reported that Police arrested Chief Mputeni of Lumbadzi in Dowa in the plot TO kill Vice-President and Health Minister Khumbo Kachale, Minister of Justice and Attorney General Ralph Kasambara and Deputy Health Minister Halima Daudi.
The chief had alleged that Kalilani was the mastermind of the plan and financed it.
Police public relations officer Davie Chingwalu said the law enforcers nabbed the chief and two others who include a witchdoctor.
Chingwalu said when former minister Kalilani was questioned about the witchcraft plot, she “expressed ignorance.”
The former minister who is also vice president of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) claimed the chief wanted to “blackmail” her.
Police are “still investigating to get to the truth of the matter”, according to Chingwalu.
Malawi inherited a 1911 Witchcraft Act from the British, which assumes that it does not exist, and makes it an offence to accuse someone of practicing witchcraft, or for an individual to claim that they practice it.
Law experts say a person can only be found guilty of practising witchcraft if they confess to being a witch.
Elderly women are most commonly accused of witchcraft, but people of all ages have been ostracized, jailed, attacked and even killed on suspicion of being witches.
