SA court to rule on Chanthunya extradition case
A South Africa court will next month rule whether murder suspect Misozi Chanthunya can be extradited from South Africa to Malawi to answer charges of murdering a pregnant Zimbabwean girlfriend, Linda Gasa -25.
The South African’s High Court is due to hand down its ruling on Aril 16. If it backs extradition, then Chanthunya, will have to be dispatched to Malawi. He will however have an option to lodge an appeal on a point of law.
Chanthunya was arrested by Internaional Police (Interpol) in Rustenburg, in the North West Province of South Africa after a year and months on the run.
Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga, confirmed that the extradition ruling is on April 16.
The married Chanthunya escaped from Malawi in 2010 after allegedly murdering his Zimbabwean girlfriend who was the second-year Malawi College of Accountancy student.
She was later found entombed in the 34-year-old at a private cottage in the southern resort town of Mangochi.
Nyasa Times were the first to break the news of Gasa’s missing.
Malawi Police officers were accused to have let Chanthunya escape. President Bingu wa Mutharika’s daughter, Duwa, is implicated to have aided fugitive Chanthunya to flee the country and to defeat justice.
An officer at Soche Police Station told Nyasa Times that when Chanthunya was summoned to the station sometime ago, President Mutharika’s daughter, Duwa went to the station and was herself engaged in talks with some senior officers.
Gasa went missing on August 4, 2010 and the matter was reported to police on the 18th of October. Chanthunya was summoned to police on the same day.
“On the 19th August, relatives of Linda and Chanthunya were also summoned to Soche Police for discussions. Chanthunya said that he left Linda at Wenela Bus Depot. He denied taking her to the cottage although the relatives said they communicated with Linda while she was at Chanthunya’s cottage.
“When we established that he was in Mangochi, he went missing. We could not arrest him at that time because we had not concluded the investigations,” said police spokesman Davie Chingwalu.
Police moved Peter Chikwemba, the Criminal Investigations Detective who handled the Chanthunya file, to the northern border district of Karonga.
Mukhito is on record conceding that officer “could have done better” to prevent an escape of Chanthunya.
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