BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-The High Court in Blantyre on Tuesday, acquitted the self-acclaimed supreme leader of the People’s Land Organization (PLO) leader Vincent Wandale, on two counts of conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor and criminal trespass.
The Court has however, upheld the sentence arguing that although Wandale watched the invasion from a distance, however, under Section 21 of the Penal Code, he was party to the commission of the offence.
The ruling follows the supreme leader’s appeal against the lower Court conviction of his 18-month suspended sentence.
The PLO leader was convicted on November 3, 2016, and was given an 18-month suspended sentence on November 8, for conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, criminal trespass and aiding and abating illegal use of land.
Wandale’s conviction followed full trial, after he was arrested on September 3, 2016 in Lilongwe. There were reports that he led hundreds of community members to invade the privately-owned Conforzi Estate, in Thyolo district.
However Wandale’s lawyer Michael Goba Chipeta, challenged the Court’s verdict, and argued that the State failed to specify the misdemeanor his client had committed.
Chipeta further argued that the Court failed to prove any use of land, and the physical presence of Wandale at the scene of the crime.
In his ruling, High Court Judge Sylvester Kalembera, quashed the convictions in counts one and three, and set aside the sentence.
Judge Kalembera observed that the lower Court erred in convicting the appellant on the offence of conspiracy to commit an offence, in totality. The judge added that the lower Court did not establish or prove the offence.
“I consequently quash the appellant’s conviction under one and set aside the sentence therein. And on the third ground of appeal, indeed the lower Court could not have convicted the appellant, having convicted him already on the main principle charge,” reads Kalembera’s ruling.
Upon conviction and sentencing, the supreme leader, threatened taking the matter to International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to seek intervention.
Before he was arrested and tried in the Court, Wandale authored a strong letter titled, “The African Traditionalist Government of The United States of Thyolo and Mulanje (MUST),” declaring war against the foreign aggression from their ancestors’ land.
In April 2016, Wandale declared Thyolo and Mulanje as independent states, calling it the “United States of Mulanje and Thyolo” purportedly on behalf of the group. He gave government up to September 1, to resolve the land issue by giving them back their forefather’s land or he would start disturbances among them.
The PLO has been agitating for the local people’s occupation of all idle tea estates land in the districts since its establishment in 2009. The organization has been demanding that estates owners pay £65 (about K53,000) per acre, per year, for all used colonial estate land from 1914 to date.
The PLO has also been requesting from the estates owners, a wage rate of £6.13 per hour (about K5,000) per individual, for those who were involved in Thangata (bonded labor) between 1914 and 1963.
Meanwhile, the self-acclaimed supreme leader Vincent Wandale, is on remand following his arrest two weeks ago, for allegedly obtaining money by false pretense.
Wandare’s arrest follows general concerns from his subjects, that he has been collecting money from villagers in Mulanje and Thyolo, promising to share them land.
The supreme leader is said to have been collecting money from villagers, but after realizing that they had been duped, they decided to launch the complaint and said it was within their rights.
But soon after his arrest, Wandale told reporters that his arrest was cooked up to subject him to torture for his quest of fighting for people’s land rights in Thyolo and Mulanje.