George Chaponda, State, tussle over file
The State and defence Thursday differed over a document which the defence says was not served on them as part of evidence that the State is using in the case involving former minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, George Chaponda, and one of the directors of Transglobe Export Produce, Rashid Tayub.
The defence filed an application asking the State to serve them with two documents which were not filed together with documents that were earlier served on them.
But Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) lead prosecutor, Macmillan Chakhala, expressed surprise that the defence were looking for more documents.
“There is no new document but we will respond to their application. If need be, we will re-attach any document that they are asking for. The documents that we have are the documents that we served on them. For us, we see that it’s a matter of semantics; otherwise, they are the same documents we served on them. For the sake of progress, we will just comply and serve them all the documents,” Chakhala said.
However, lead defence counsel, Tamando Chokhotho, said among the files that the ACB submitted, the bureau made reference to two letters that were not served to the defence.
“They brought the documents to us on Wednesday around 4pm [and], having studied the documents, we found that they are referring to other documents which have not been provided to us. We quickly made an application requesting for the documents which were not served on us,” he said.
Chokhotho further argued that they filed the application because the documents help during preparations for cross-examination of witnesses.
“When you are preparing for a case, you need to see all the documents that are in question so that you know what exactly to prepare for cross-examination. I haven’t seen the documents yet; that’s why we are requesting for them. But they mentioned a letter that was from Chaponda to former Chief Executive Officer of Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc), Foster Mulumbe, dated October 22 and another letter from the Ministry of Agriculture to Admarc,” he said.
Chaponda is being accused of giving false information to the ACB, being found in possession of foreign currency in Malawi and attempting to obtain an advantage.
Tayub, on the other hand, is facing the charge of persuading a public officer to perform his functions corruptly
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