JB hits at APM over assassination plot claims

Former Malawi president Joyce Banda has scoffed at the attempt by Peter Mutharika’s administration to implicate her in an alleged assassination plot and the Cashgate scandal.
Banda, who has been outside the country since she lost the May 20 2014 elections, told UK’s The Guardian newspaper of Thursday that her political enemies are plotting against her.
She added that she was afraid of what will happen to her when she returns home.

“I am being accused of murder—that I wanted to murder this President the time he was refusing to give up power to allow me take office,” Banda told The Guardian’s Africa correspondent David Smith.
She added: “It came from his mouth that the former president sent doctors to come and inject him the day he was kept at the police [station]. That is the one [accusation] that is more current and serious now, but I don’t care even about that because it’s not possible.”
Banda also defiantly defended her handling of Cashgate and blamed the DPP for failing to take action against the massive corruption in government prior to her ascendancy to the presidency.
“The tragedy is that the former president was alerted, just like I was, and didn’t take action,” she said. “That is the difference. Therefore, I shall always be proud of what I have done, regardless of what you journalists or anybody can say,” she told The Guardian.
President Mutharika recently told a ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rally—commemorating the first anniversary of his arrest alongside several Cabinet colleagues—that government has evidence of an alleged attempt on his life while he was in police custody.
Banda’s administration arrested Mutharika and then Cabinet colleagues Patricia Kaliati, Henry Mussa, Goodall Gondwe, Kondwani Nankhumwa, Symon Vuwa Kaunda, Nicholas Dausi and former chief secretary to the government Bright Msaka on treason charges.
They were accused and charged with attempting to block Banda from succeeding president Bingu wa Mutharika, who had died in office.
Mutharika said, among others, he has a sworn in affidavit by former police Inspector General Lot Dzonzi on events leading to the alleged assassination attempt by fake doctors sent to poison him while incarcerated at Lumbadzi Police Station.
Ministry of Justice spokesperson Apoche Itimu in an e-mail response on Thursday said the DPP is yet to receive any case docket on the matter.
“Therefore, at this stage, the Malawi Police Service (MPS) are better placed to respond,” Itimu said.
National Police Headquarters spokesperson Rhoda Manjolo asked for more time to follow up the matter with investigation officers and had not responded by press time.