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Court adjourns Chisale’s injunction hearing

Former president Peter Mutharika’s personal bodyguard Norman Chisale will have to wait until Monday to know whether he can be granted an injunction restraining police from arresting him further.

A hearing of the application was scheduled to take place yesterday in Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Lovemore Chikopa’s chamber, but the State indicated that it was not ready; hence, the adjournment.

A lawyer representing Chisale, Chancy Gondwe, applied for a judicial review and an interlocutory injunction before High Court Judge Charles Mkandawire in Lilongwe on police conduct of effecting multiple arrests.

Mkandawire granted Gondwe’s request for a judicial review but declined to grant the interlocutory injunction and stay order against the Malawi Police Service on multiple, consecutive and endless arrests.

Chisale during one of his court appearances

In an interview yesterday, Gondwe said following Mkandawire’s decision not to grant the temporary relief, he appealed to the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal on Sunday.

He said: “We renewed the application for the injunction and the stay order before a single member of the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal on Sunday who directed that the application should come for an inter-partes hearing today [yesterday].

“But the State indicated that it was not ready as they need more affidavits on the matter so that is why it has been adjourned to Monday at 11am.”

According to Gondwe, if the court will grant the interlocutory injunction and stay order, it will result in the immediate release of Chisale pending hearing and determination on the application for judicial review.

Chisale, who is currently on remand at Maula Prison, was re-arrested two weeks ago upon his release from Chichiri Prison in Blantyre for allegedly having a hand in the murder of former Anti-Corruption Bureau director of corporate services Issa Njauju.

Njauju was brutally murdered in July 2015, sparking calls from civil society organisations and opposition political parties for the ousted Democratic Progressive Party government to bring his killers to book.

Chisale was first arrested on July 15 this year in Lilongwe in the controversial K5 billion cement importation saga for which he was charged with money laundering and fraud. He was later rearrested for the shooting of a 35-year-old woman in Chimwankhunda in May this year. 

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