Mpinganjira case in High Court
The Blantyre Magistrate’s Court has committed to the High Court a case in which businessperson Thom Mpinganjira is accused of attempting to bribe Constitution Court judges to rule in favour of former president Peter Mutharika in then presidential election case.
The court’s decision follows the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) application to move the case to the upper court which the graft busting body believes would handle it better than the magistrates’ court.
Hearing ACB’s application yesterday, filed by its director general Reyneck Matemba, senior resident magistrate Simeon Mdeza said he had no problem and accepted the bureau’s request.
In an interview after the ruling, Matemba expressed satisfaction with the ruling saying the bureau was ready on the case.
He said: “On the part of the court, they have to prepare a record of proceedings and on our part we have to prepare disclosures and we will be waiting for the court to give us the date of the hearing”.
In a separate interview, one of Mpinganjira’s lawyers, Patrice Nkhono, said the defence had no problem with the case being committed to the High Court, since the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code gives power to commit cases to the High Court.
According to Nkhono, ACB is supposed to submit documents to the defense on the application.
He said: “We haven’t received the disclosures yet from the Anti-Corruption Bureau, but we expect we will be receiving those ones in a little while. And once we get those we can begin to make preparation and be ready for the trial”.
In January this year, ACB arrested Mpinganjira after Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda complained to the bureau that a business person and a public servant wanted to bribe the five judges who presided over the 2019 presidential election case.
The banker, who is currently on bail, is answering charges related to attempting to induce High Court judges Mike Tembo and Healey Potani to exercise their functions corruptly by offering K100 million.
He is also being accused of attempting to induce a public officer to abuse his office by attempting to persuade Tembo and Potani to accept the bribe and rule the election case in favour of former president Peter Mutharika and the Malawi Electoral Commission who were the respondents in the case.
