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Albino case: 3 pathologists to craft autopsy report

Two local top-notch pathologists and a foreign expert have been engaged to undertake an independent autopsy on the body of Buleya Lule, who died mysteriously while in police custody in Lilongwe on Wednesday.

Blantyre-based College of Medicine pathologist Dr, Charles Dzamalala had to travel to Lilongwe to join fellow pathologist Damiwe Tomoka, based in Lilongwe, to carry out the autopsy at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) on Friday evening.

Died on Thursday: Lule

A South African pathologist has also been roped in to later review the results which will be contained in a full report by the end of business today.

These are some of the special arrangements the Association for People Living with Albinism (Apam) has made, after securing a High Court order restraining the police from burying Lule.

Lule was deemed by many as a key suspect who may have had the capability of spilling the beans on some masterminds and some dynamics fuelling the killings and abductions of persons with albinism.

Conducted autopsy: Dzamalala

Unconfirmed reports say the need for the independent autopsy report came despite an earlier autopsy report at KCH.

Lule and six others appeared in a packed Lilongwe Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, charged with abducting Goodson Makanjira, a 14-year boy with albinism in Dedza, over a week ago.

The stepfather Kumbilani Patson told the court that he and two other accomplices abducted his stepson, whom they handed over to Lule, who reportedly enticed him into the act on the promise that the deal was worth K800 000.

Pointing to Lule in court, after pleading guilty to the charge, Patson identified him as the man who had told the abduction team that he knew the market for people with albinism.

Since 2014,  23 persons with albinism have been abducted and killed in the face of an odd belief that their body parts are needed by traditional medicine men in concoctions that make their clients supernaturally rich and successful in various endeavours. 

But Lule, who was among the four suspect  to plead not guilty to the abduction charge, said Patson and one other suspects who corroborated Patson’s testimony implicating him were lying and merely wanted to tarnish his image. 

The case was adjourned to March 22, after the police asked for more time to carry out investigations which include trying to find the missing boy.

But on social media and in other discussion fora, many people felt that Lule could have later mentioned at least the ‘big fish’ suspected to be behind the K800 000 deal he tried to broker. n 

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