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| Opinion |
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by
Editor, 05 May 2006
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06:38:21
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Tax-payers might pay heavily for treason arrests
If reports of violations of rights of some suspects arrested in connection with the alleged treason case against Vice President Cassim Chilumpha are anything to go by, the whole exercise might end up being costly to the tax-payer.
It will be prudent that in handling the issue, government and its agents should play according to rules of the game. They should guard against being overzealous.
They should bear in mind that every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of law and that pre-trial detention should not be used as a mode of punishment.
Our concern is legitimate in the context of cases. First, that of former diplomat at the Malawi Mission in Egypt Ndaila Onani who was arrested from a hospital bed at Likuni, according to Fahad Assani, lawyer representing Chilumpha.
Onani—who has since been released on medical grounds—was reportedly being denied medical attention, which is his right despite being a suspect.
Secondly, Mrs. Kadango was picked in place of her husband who was allegedly at large. She spent a night in a police cell for a crime allegedly committed by her husband. She is a person in her own right, entitled to full rights and not an appendage of her husband, Shabban.
Mrs. Kadango’s arrest should be condemned in the strongest terms. It is reminiscent of the dictatorial regime of the late Kamuzu Banda which used to punish a clan or an entire village for alleged offences of one of its members.
Indeed, it is such antics employed by Kamuzu’s regime that have cost tax-payers millions of kwacha paid to victims of atrocities through the National Compensation Tribunal. That money could have been put to better use if those in power then were not drunk with it.
The same could happen with Mrs. Kadango and others who might prove that their rights were violated. |
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