High Court revokes bail for manslaughter suspects

The High Court in Mzuzu has revoked bail of three police officers who are suspected of causing death of former Natural Resources College (NRC) student while in custody.

The suspects, constables George Kamphe, Victor Msoloma and Lucius Kampeni, appeared before the court on Wednesday to present their defence.

However, principal witnesses, who are senior police officers, did not turn up for the hearing. This prompted the defence lawyers to ask for an adjournment of the case.

Judge Dingiswayo Madise adjourned the case, but revoked the suspects bail.

The suspects were arrested on April 18 2012 together with three others, inspector Gertrude Munkhondia; constables Bertha Chavula and Joel Kapunda.

They were all charged with murder of a former NRC student Edson Msiska. But cases of the three others were dropped due to lack of evidence whereas the remaining three were given bail and the charge was changed from murder to manslaughter.

The late Msiska was arrested on January 24 2012 at Mzuzu Bus Depot for allegedly being found in possession of property suspected to have been stolen.

He died four days after his arrest.

Postmortem results indicated that his death was due to assault as his body had several fractures.

Dr Charles Dzamalala who conducted the postmortem testified that the death was significantly due to “severe traumatic intracranial hemorrhage”.