The Blantyre Magistrate’s Court has dismissed an application by businessperson Abdul Karim Batatawala and three others to have their corruption case discharged.

The application followed the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Martha Chizuma’s submissions in court yesterday that the State failed to serve the defence with disclosures on February 10 2022 as ordered by the court due to financial constraints.

She also told the court that ACB lawyers who were initially handling the case recuse themselves on the matter and that the bureau had to assign new lawyers from Lilongwe office.

Batatawala with his lawyer Phoya outside
court in Blantyre yesterday

Chizuma further said the Bureau was not able to access funds for the prosecution of the matter due to challenges with the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) and that ACB failed to engage its witnesses as they are scattered across the country.

She said: “The bureau has not been able to access funds for witness engagements. But our first volume of disclosures we have served the defence last Friday.”

In his submission, Batatawala’s lawyer Henry Phoya, who has just joined the case, asked the court to discharge his client arguing that Chizuma’s assertions was an indication that the State was not ready to prosecute the matter.

He also told the court that the State’s failure to serve the defence with disclosures by February 10 2022 was contempt of court order.

Said Phoya: “Much as we sympathise with the litany of the predicament as cited by the director general as reasons, the fact remains that the order has not been complied with.

“We are of the view that the prosecution is not ready to prosecute the matter. If they complied with the order, they would have given the defence enough time to prepare.”

Phoya also argued that ACB has no powers to prosecute offences the accused persons are answering, saying the alleged crimes are outside Corruption Practices Act.

Lawyers representing the other three accused persons concurred with Phoya that their clients be discharged.

But delivering the ruling, senior resident magistrate Martin Chipofya dismissed the accused persons’ application.

He observed that the State raised good reasons for its failure to serve the defence with disclosures in good time which showed that ACB was committed to prosecute the matter.

He said: “We cannot simplify those [ACB’s] explanations. It is the very first time that the matter is coming for hearing and there are good reasons why the application be dismissed.”

Chipofya has since directed the State to serve the defence with the final volume of disclosures by March 31 2022 and that the defence will be given 21 days to prepare for trial before the court reconvenes on April 25 for full trial.

Batatawala and the other three co-accused, namely former Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services chief immigration officer Elvis Thodi, the department’s commissioner responsible for operations Fletcher Nyirenda and deputy director Limbani Chawinga were arrested in December last year.

The four are answering the first count of conspiracy to defraud by inflating the market price of 500 lockers procured by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services from Africa Commercial Agency under contract number IM/01/85 dated March 22 2010 valued at K2 950 560 per unit price totalling K1 475 280 000.

The post Court rebuffs Batatawala, 3 others appeared first on The Nation Online.