Malawi Court denies granting bail to ex-minister Henry Mussa

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Lilongwe Magistrate Court has today denied to grant bail to Henry Mussa, former Minister of Information in the deposed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, and former director of information Gideon Munthali.

Mussa and Munthali were picked by police on Sunday for being suspected of stealing government property while they were in office.

The former minister who has served presidents Bakili Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika and Peter Mutharika and former Member of Parliament for Chiradzulu was arrested after being implicated by Munthali in the crime of stealing nine computers and three diesel generators donated to the Ministry of Information by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority.

The suspects appeared before Lilongwe Magistrate Court where they were formally charged.

Through their lawyers, they applied for bail but making his ruling, Principal Resident Magistrate Viva Nyimba refused to release the dual to allow the State to complete its investigations.

Nyimba has since adjourned the case to 21^st September, 2020 when the court will determine whether to give the suspects bail or continue keeping them on remand.

Maneno Chimulala

I am a journalist, educator, and activist with passion for telling stories about social justice, sports and political issues. I graduated from Mzuzu University. I started my career at the Maravi Post online publication in 2012 as an intern while in college. Upon graduating from Mzuzu University I was offered a job as Sports Reporter because of my background as a goalkeeper and rose to the position of sub editor. I also had a short stint with Nyasatimes, Malawi Punch and Malawi Digest. Over the past seven years, I have worked intimately with rural organizations and communities in Malawi on human rights, girl child education and grassroots development projects. With an academic background in education, I also volunteer as male champion for girls’ education under Girls Empowerment Networks (GENET) in Malawi’s South West Education Division (SWED).