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| National |
| Kara says police wanted to kill him |
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by
Joseph Langa, 01 February 2004
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19:29:17
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In an interesting twist of events, Dowa East MP Nasser Kara told the High Court sitting in the lakeshore district of Salima over the weekend that he was forced to sign a statement admitting that he killed his driver Alex Mbewe prepared by the police, who threatened to kill him.
Kara, who started by asking Judge Dial Kumange whether he looked like a murderer, told the court that the police in Nkhotakota tortured him for two days to force him to admit that he killed his driver.
He said the officers from the Police Mobile Service, some armed, jabbed him with a gun butt on several occasions.
Kara claimed that during the period before his arrest, which the police claimed he was on the run, he was in Mangochi doing construction work.
He said that the police told him they already knew how he killed Mbewe from statements they got from his two bodyguards who were already in custody at the time and that they would kill and throw his body in a river if he continued to resist admitting to the charge of murder.
Kara, who looked steady, also told the court he refused to admit killing Mbewe until he saw a policeman pulling a trigger.
“I thought it was a joke. Had I known I would not have resisted. They jabbed me on the left eye with the gun butt and slapped me in the head. I could only see stars and later realised they blinded me.
“One of them, grabbed me by the neck and pushed me against the wall and put a pistol on my neck. When I saw him pulling the trigger, I had no choice but sign the statement which indicated I killed Mbewe,” said Kara, attracting laughter from the court.
He claimed the police ignored his plea to call a lawyer to take him to the hospital. He also said they took him to the scene of the alleged murder where they took his pictures insinuating that Kara was showing the police how he killed Mbewe.
Kara claimed he was not in Nkhotakota when Mbewe died in the company of his bodyguards, saying he was in Mzuzu but his two bodyguards and Mbewe were in Nkhotakota. He instructed the driver to leave the car in Mangochi.
When quizzed by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Fahad Assani, who is assisted by John Suzi Banda during cross-examination, Kara failed to explain why he was still looking normal when he claimed he was blinded and tortured by the police.
Kara also failed to explain why he never disputed statements from several witnesses who told the court that they saw him in Nkhotakota at the time he claimed to be in Mzuzu and that he told them he was going to Mangochi.
The DPP insisted the MP killed Mbewe because of the evidence tendered in the court.
But Kara’s lawyer Ralph Kasambara told the court Friday and Saturday after cross-examining the State key witnesses that the State failed to prove that his client murdered his driver.
Kasambara, who argued on several occasions with the DPP because of the way he cross-examined the witnesses, said the police fabricated the three statements because they wanted to implicate the MP.
Kasambara claimed contradictions among police witnesses, which included the colour of trousers Mbewe was wearing and procedure used to record statements from the three accused, is evidence that they were lying. The case continues Monday.
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