Malawi’s former president Bakili Muluzi, furious at the arrest of his son Atupele, is considering cutting short his medical treatment in South Africa and return home.
Muluzi, in an exclusive interview from South Africa this Tuesday, argued that the arrest of his son, a leading UDF presidential aspirant in 2014 polls, is politically motivated to intimidate the opposition from questioning the “dictatorial tendencies” of the current administration.
Said Muluzi: “All I am asking police is not to cause any harm to my son. I am considering asking my doctors to allow me to leave immediately to attend to this. This is not what we wanted when we fought for democracy in the 1990s.
“I will hold the police and government responsible should anything bad happen to my son. I expected our police, who are supposed to be reformed, to act professionally and refrain from being used by government.”
Police arrested Atupele, who is also Machinga North East MP, at Lilongwe’s Bunda Turn off as he was driving to Blantyre on Tuesday. He is being kept at Lumbadzi Police Station in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
Atupele has since been charged with inciting violence following Sunday’s clashes between United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters and police in which a police station, a police vehicle and house belonging to one of the officers were torched in Lilongwe’s Area 24. Unidentified people also set free suspects in the police’s cells.
