.jpeg&w=60&q=100&h=60)
Legal advisor to late Bingu wa Mutharika, Allan Ntata has criticized the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration for trying to shield former President Dr. Bakili Muluzi in the MK1.7 billion corruption case, saying dropping the case is an abomination.
Muluzi together with his personal aide Lyness Violet Whiskey are being accused of misappropriating money S$ 13 million of what the State had claimed was donor money meant for various government development projects.
Last week Friday, Muluzi through his lawyers applied to court to have his case discharged following the resignation of lead prosecutor Reyneck Matemba, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) deputy director.
The lawyer argued that it is senseless to continue with the case where there is no prosecutor and the presiding Judge set Thursday as the day for the State to be heard on the case.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Ntata expressed shock over how the case is handled by the DPP government.
He said the state has spent lots of taxpayes money in pursuing the case for close to 10 years now and dropping the case just like that it’s uncalled for.
“We can only thank providence that Muluzi’s stinking scheme of mice and men came to naught.
“Coming back to the case at hand, for the record, we want to state that we do not – even for a fraction of a second – think Counsel Gustav Kaliwo, the then ACB Director, just picked Muluzi out of malice. No,” wrote Ntata
He added: “We want to add that, even if it were the case that Counsel Gustav Kaliwo was a barefoot lawyer of questionable integrity and ethics like some characters we know, his successors: Counsel Tumalizge Ndovi, Counsel Alex Nampota or Justice Rezine Mzikamanda would have dropped the case.”
Ntata said the three eminent lawyers’ continuation with this case underlines the fact Muluzi had and still has a case that needs to be pursued.
“Anything short of this is totally unacceptable, and dropping the charges is an abomination. Where has all the evidence that the case was built on gone?
“It was upon his belief that the evidence in this case would was enough to convict Muluzi that Counsel Alex Nampota pursued the case with such patriotic passion that the accused had to fake illness to buy time, hoping for the day when,” said Ntata.
He also faulted the pact between UDF and DPP, saying this is negatively affecting the progress of the case.
“In the least, through this pact, President Peter Mutharika’s is conceding his failure to run the country; hence his supping with Muluzi – a veteran manipulator and a man with a case to answer, giving Muluzi on a silver platter the chance he always wanted. Bakili Muluzi can now finish off what he failed to complete, which is: running down Malawi from behind the bent back of a puppet Mutharika.
“Having failed with late Bingu, Bakili Muluzi has now hit the jackpot with Peter Mutharika,” wrote Ntata
He added: “One does not need to look far to see that Atupele Muluzi, Bakili’s son, and Bright Msaka, also close to both Muluzis, are in the cabinet in lieu of Muluzi senior, the very accused whose case is about to fizzle away.
“Sources within the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are not mincing words: Atupele and Bright Msaka have for the past year been agitating that Bakili’s corruption case should be dropped.”
