State faulted on Chisale bail revocation request

Lawyers representing former president Peter Mutharika’s private bodyguard Norman Chisale in an attempted murder case have faulted the State’s bail revocation application, describing it as embarrassing and laughable.

Chisale’s lawyer Chancy Gondwe told the court yesterday when it reconvened hearing of a case in which his client is accused of attempting to kill a Blantyre-based woman Sigere Amani on May 20 2020 in Chimwankhunda Township.

While he cross-examined State witness Henry Malange, Gondwe wondered why the State had to claim that Chisale interfered with a State witness.

But in response, Malange, a police officer who is also a lead investigator in the case, told the court that he informed the State on the witness interference on Tuesday when Moses Banda failed to show up at the scene of the incident which the court visited.

After cross-examining Malange, Gondwe told the court that the bail revocation application was embarrassing and laughable.

He said: “If they [State] knew that we are interfering, they could have raised that issue before they even started parading witnesses.”

Gondwe further said they requested the State to make a formal application on Tuesday but they resisted.

“Had they made a formal application, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he said.

But presiding Judge Sylvester Kalembera told Gondwe that both the defence and the State will have time to make their submissions.

Senior State advocate Pirirani Masanjala told the court that they had call logs between the State witness and the accused and that they would not parade more witnesses as Moses Banda who was expected to testify was not around.

Masanjala’s sentiments that Banda was not available angered the defence who told the court that on Tuesday the State claimed that the same witness was at large, but was seen outside the court when it was adjourned.

Kalembera adjourned the case to Friday morning.

In an interview after the court proceeding, Masanjala said prosecuting a matter is not as straight forward as someone makes it seem.

He said: “We are not proving a case on a balance of probabilities. For that reason, it will be failure of us to be parading a witness whom we feel the accused has tampered with.”

Chisale was arrested in Lilongwe in July 2020 soon after he was released on bail on another case. He was charged with the attempted murder of Amani, after she was shot in the right leg.