UK submits report on Njauju killers

 Maybe the Malawi Police Service will now do a better job on the on-going investigations on the murder of ACB director of corporate affairs Issa Njauju on July 4 2014. But this is only when and if the Malawi Government decides to use the findings of a scoping review on the Malawi police investigations on the murder which British experts submitted to Malawi early this year.

Head of the Department for International Development (DfID) office in Malawi, Dave Beer, confirmed in a written response on Tuesday that London submitted its findings into Njauju’s assassination to Malawi Government.

“The exercise was done with the cooperation of the Malawi Police. The experts spent one week in Malawi. Their report was submitted to the government of Malawi for its consideration,” Beer explained.

While stressing that the UK government does not comment on on-going investigations in any jurisdiction, Beer explained that London paid for homicide investigation experts to do the scoping review of the Malawi Police Service (MPS) investigations into Njauju’s murder at the request of the Malawi Government.

According to a source privy to the investigations, the UK murder investigation experts presented their findings to government four months ago.

Minister of Homeland Security Nicholas Dausi, who also confirmed that the UK government deployed a team of experts into the country late last year to conduct their investigations, referred Weekend Nation to the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs which was handling the matter. But its minister Samuel Tembenu was not available when contacted.

But secretary for Justice, who is also Solicitor General, Gertrude Hiwa, referred Weekend Nation to her spokesperson Pilirani Masanjala, who asked for a questionnaire. But for almost two weeks he has not responded to it despite several reminders.

The Malawi Government, through the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, wrote the British Government requesting technical support on the matter in an attempt to bring to an end the four-year murder mystery that has eluded the country’s law enforcement agencies.

Malawi requested support for investigations in the murder cases of Njauju and Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year Polytechnic student who was killed on campus in 2011, but the UK government only nodded to support the Njauju case.

In June 2016, the Malawi

 the first to launch investigations into Njauju’s murder, said they were having difficulties to conclude their investigations, apparently because the murderers “were very sophisticated”.Police Service (MPS), who were

The Police went as far as offering a tip-off bounty of K1.5 million, later raised to K2 million an indication that government was making little or no headway on the matter.

In an interview this week National Police spokesperson James Kadadzera asked for more time to gather information on the investigations’ progress.

Over the years, government has come under intense public pressure to bring to justice those responsible for Njauju’s killing .

In May last year, three local civil society organisations (CSOs)—Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), Centre for the Development of People (Cedep) and Youth and Society (YAS)—presented a petition on Njauju’s death to the 62nd Session of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.

The CSOs wanted the commission to pay attention to the issue when assessing Malawi’s human rights record, doubting if justice on the murder would ever prevail. It is alleged Njauju’s murder was linked to his job at ACB.

His body was found half-buried behind Presidential Villas in Lilongwe while his official vehicle was burnt to ashest wo kilometres away, at Mtsiriza, a peri-urban township in Lilongwe. The case is seen as one of the country’s most high-profile murders.

So far, only two people, a local sand miner and a police officer, were arrested in connection to the murder which at one point was said to continue raising fears among staff at ACB

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