Dzonzi will allow commissioners to interrogate top cops over Chasowa

New Inspector General of police Lot Dzonzi will allow the Robert Chasowa Commission recently appointed by President Joyce Banda to interrogate top police officers involved with the student before he mysteriously died in September 2011, Malawi News can reveal.

“Whatever they want will be given to them and the police will comply with what¬ever the commission will recommend afterwards”, National police headquarters spokesman Davie Chingwalu quoted Lot Dzonzi as saying.

Chasowa is alleged to have secretly dealt with top police officers including Commissioner for the south Rodney Jose, the former Inspector General Peter Mukhito among others in the Criminal Investigations Department.

Chingwalu was reacting to reports that an exclusive MHRC investigation which has been handed to the Commission of Inquiry on Chasowa was barred from interviewing police officers on the matter in the absence of a nod from former IG Peter Mukhito, a targeted interviewee himself.

“We want to make it clear that while the IG says will com¬ply and cooperate with the commission, he cannot com¬ment on the report by the Malawi Human Rights Commission because he was not served with the report,” Chingwalu said.

In a recent interview with Malawi News with regard to progress of work at the appointed Commission of Inquiry on Chasowa’s death, Liaising and Investigations Officer Rudo Chimbalawala said his office is receiving pieces information from various exclusive sources.

“We are satisfied with the direction we have taken so far and I can confirm that it is true that some institutions are coming forward with information. How¬ever we cannot disclose who this is because we are under oath not to,” Chimbalawala said.

He said all interviews with people with information on the matter would be held in camera.

But information emerging from the MHRC suggests that Chasowa was actually killed just hours away from meeting renowned civil rights activist Rafik Hajat with whom he had agreed disclosure of details of a government-sponsored criminal mission, according to the said report.

A man, whose identity we choose to conceal, has assured the MHRC that he would make himself available before any court coroner, on request, to provide information on ‘who killed’ Chasowa.

The report, dated May

25, 2012 reference no.: HRC/05/03/02/BT, which has been sent to the new Commission of Inquiry into the mysterious death, says Chasowa was slated to meet Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI) Executive Director Hajat on Sunday 25th September 2011 with details of the identities of people who had set ablaze IPI offices earlier on September 2.

Chasowa was found dead on Septem¬ber 24 after speaking to Hajat on phone the previous day.

In his narration to the MHRC, Hajat confirms meeting Chasowa on 15 August 2011.

The report further names Mukhito, as having been one active player in the events that involved Chasowa days before he died. Mukhito has not been interviewed in the MHRC report.

Chasowa, a 4th-year Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering student at the Polytechnic, was found laying dead on the college campus September 24. Police said he had committed suicide.

But a postmortem conducted later by Histopathologist Dr. Charles Dzamalala suggested that Chasowa may have been killed after an assault.