CHRR reports Chasowa murder to ACHPR

Malawi’s Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) has asked the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to quiz the Malawi Government on measures it has taken to investigate and bring to book people believed to have killed Robert Chasowa.

Chasowa, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student at Polytechnic, was on 24 September, 2011 found dead at the campus of the Malawi Polytechnic, a constituent College of the University of Malawi.

And following the report by a commission of inquiry, which President Joyce Banda instituted last year, police arrested Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) regional governor for the South, Noel Masangwi, and some politicians and businesspersons who the report singled out as possible suspects.

But in his statement at the 53rd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is taking place in Banjul, Gambia since Monday this week to 23 April, CHRR executive director, Undule Mwakasungula, expressed dissatisfaction with the way government is handling the case.

Mwakasungula feared the delay in prosecuting the suspects in the Chasowa murder will set a bad precedent for Malawi regarding the protection and promotion of human rights and rule of law.

“This will set a bad precedent for our country,” he said.

However, a government representative at the session, senior deputy chief state advocate, Pacharo Kayira, has said government remains committed to the values and ideals of the African people in creating a peaceful, democratic and human rights culture on this great continent.