Banda could have interfered with witnesses - minister

ARTHUR SIMUCHOBA
Correspondent | Friday June 14, 2013 00:00

Home Affairs Minister Edgar Lungu said the former president was not allowed to fly to Johannesburg because there was a travel ban on him and moreover the Attorney-General had not been furnished with copies of the court order from the Lusaka High Court.He said Banda was stopped because of fears that he might interfere with investigations into the two charges he is facing.'Mr Banda is currently being probed on various allegations of public interest some of which require gathering information from witnesses outside the country. If Mr Banda is allowed to go outside the country, there is a high likelihood that he may tamper with evidence and witnesses or sabotage investigations altogether,' he said.

Lungu said he had only learnt of the court order through the media and no copy had been availed the Attorney General and that seemed his strongest point.'So this morning, our officers were in a dilemma. They did not know what to do,' he claimed.Other reports were that the trip had been shot down because of a sense that South Africa was 'uncooperative' on matters relating to the former president's trial. Banda's son, Henry, is on the police wanted list and believed to be 'somewhere' in South Africa or Mauritius, where the former ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party's materials for the 2011 elections were printed.The Lusaka High Court had on June 6 released the former head of state's  passport and allowed him to travel to South Africa for the African Presidential Roundtable of the Boston University's African Presidential Centre.He was due to make a presentation and moderate one session.But Immigration officers would not process his papers to board the early morning Lusaka-Johannesburg flight on June 7. They still would not do so even when shown the high court order allowing him to travel.

They said they were acting on the instructions of the Director-General of the Immigration Department who in turn said he was acting on instructions from the top.Like in April when he was invited to the inauguration of the new Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Banda was prevented from travelling even though he had court permission to do so.The former president's office immediately issued a statement complaining that he had been barred by Immigration Officers despite the court order.His lawyers said they would commence contempt of court proceedings against the head of the Immigration Department. When he spoke, Banda said that President Michael Sata was trying to drag him back into active politics. He said he had handed over power peacefully because he wanted peace to prevail.

It had taken a while for him to obtain the court order to travel and retrieve his passport from the police where it is held as part of his bail conditions for the two cases where he is charged with abuse of office and concealment of gratification. His lawyers had first applied to the Lusaka Chief Magistrate Joshua Banda and another magistrate who is presiding over his second case for a variation of Banda's bail conditions to enable him to travel for the high level conference that was attended by a number of former African presidents.But both magistrates on June 2 turned the application down saying it should have been lodged with the High Court. His lawyers complied and applied to the High Court.  But by close of business June 5 when he was supposed to have travelled, the court had not determined the matter.It had done so by the late evening, it seems.  It granted the application on the grounds that he was 'not a flight-risk as he had all his possessions in Zambia and young children he was leaving behind and that the invitation was from a credible source.'

'I hereby order the Government Joint Investigations Team to release the applicant's passport for the period of four days only, from 6th to 9th June, 2013, which he must surrender back upon return. The bond conditions are accordingly varied,' read the order of Justice Jane Kabuka.The way seemed clear for his departure and the conference was reported to have re-drawn the schedule to accommodate his session. It was not to be. Airport Immigration officers were adamant on the morning of his scheduled departure.A distraught Banda stayed home. But the episode raised troubling questions about the state of the rule of law in Zambia. This was defiance and not for the first time, of a bona-fide court order by the executive. In April, the state stopped him going despite a court order. It said this was because the flight he was booked on would only arrive in Nairobi long after the main ceremony had ended.  (SPA)