(MaraviPost): Caroline Savala’s Sentence hearing will be coming up soon after being convicted for corruption and theft of public funds amounting to K84 million which she received from the Malawi Tourism Ministry as payment through her company, KAMU Civil Engineering.
Lawyer Raphael Kasambara has told the hearing Judge that he plans to bring four character witnesses on behalf of Caroline Savala. The witnesses will attest to the good character of Savala in a bid to sway the court from slapping her with a stiff sentence.
According to Nyasatimes reporting, One will be a pastor from her church, the second person will be a medical doctor; the third person will be one Leonard Kalonga, a civil servant working for the Ministry of Tourism and finally Florence Chatuwa, a friend of Kalonga and also a friend of Caroline Savala,”
This is a tricky road for the Clever lawyer who himself is accused in another case of similar offenses. One of the witnesses is friends to two people accused and convicted of cashgate offenses. This does bring immediate bias against those Witnesses and by extension the convicted Caroline Savala.
A Malawi legal analyst told The Maravi post that, Contrary to popular belief, character witnesses’ court testimony may actually hurt the defendants they are trying to help: Cross-examining prosecutors can make a judge question witnesses’ credibility and thus see defendants more negatively than if they never heard supporting testimony at all.
By rule, Judges are not supposed to judge a defendant using the negative information prosecutors raise when cross-examining character witnesses; it’s meant only to impeach a witness’s credibility. Even so, Judges are human and thus a prosecutor’s detailed, negative impeachment of the character witness outweighed that witness’s positive character evidence–even specific, positive evidence–when participants formed conviction judgments.
So bringing character witnesses has the potential to cut both ways. If your character witnesses have flows they might impact the sentencing unfavorably. It will also depend on how strong the prosecution cross-examination will be.
