Mulanje fracas update: Guard arrested for shooting to death charcoal burner

Police in Mulanje have arrested a district forest guard for allegedly shooting to death a charcoal burner last week.

Mulanje Police Public Relations Officer Gresham Ngwira confirmed of the arrest in an interview with faceofmalawi reporter.

On the said day the suspect, Masautso Gulani and a colleague were on duty within Mulanje mountain.

While there they found a group of people burning charcoal.

In exercise of duty, Gulani, who had a rifle, shot one of the people in the head leaving him for dead as the rest fled for their life.

Hearing this, relatives organised themselves and took the dead body to the forest office.

They later started destroying office property whose value is currently unknown.

Following the report, police visited the scene and ferried dead body to Mulanje district hospital for postmortem where results showed that deceased, Loudon Joshua, died due to severe head injuries.

Meanwhile, the suspect aged 46, fled to an unknown destination before surrendering himself to police the following day.

The suspect will appear in court today to answer murder charges.