Kambwili’s plea fails in drugs libel case

FORMER Roan MP Chishimba Kambwili yesterday told the court that he does not understand the latest defamation of the President charge slapped on him.

This was in a case Kambwili, is facing another criminal libel for accusing President Lungu and Lusaka businessman Valden Findlay of using the Presidential jet to courier drugs.

When the case came up before Lusaka Magistrate Felix Kaoma for plea on Tuesday, one of Kambwili’s lawyers Keith Mweemba told the court that the matter had just come to his attention and needed to get instructions from Kambwili on how he should take plea.

“I am not in possession of the process that was filed and I have had no sight of the same. It is difficult to properly advise my client how plea should be taken. Following the demise of the father of another lawyer Christopher Mundia, he had to rush to attend to family commitments and I was made to understand that the process was served on him. “I have not had an occasion to go through the process to advise my client accordingly. He is not ready to take plea,” Mr. Mweemba said. But private prosecutor Jonas Zimba said Kambwili was fully aware of what the matter was all about and that the documents Mr. Mweemba referred could be safely said to be in the defence team’s camp.

“Simply put, they have them. Even if we went by the excuse of the demise of the late Christopher Mundia State Counsel, which is in public domain, the court will be interested to know that this death occurred sometime in the first week of October and burial was on the 11th October 2019, one month down the line.

“This matter is just for plea, which can be changed if the accused so wishes,” Mr. Zimba said.

In reply, Mr. Mweemba insisted that Kambwili could not be rushed into taking plea before his lawyer had time to appreciate the charge he is facing. He said in line with Article 18 of the Republican Constitution, the accused person must first understand the nature of the charge he is facing.

At this point Magistrate Kaoma told Mr. Mweemba to restrict himself to Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Code and not to raise constitutional issues that could not be interpreted in the Subordinate Court.

However, Mr. Mweemba said the Magistrate has power to take judicial notice of the cited Article and wondered how he was going to make his submission without referring to Article 18. This did not go well with Mr. Kaoma who in turn cautioned Mr. Mweemba not to question the court’s integrity and ordered him to proceed as guided.

Later Mr. Kaoma stood down the matter for 30 minutes to allow Mr. Mweemba and Kambwili study the complaint.

Upon resumption of the case, Mr. Kaoma read out the charge and detailed particulars of offence and asked if he understood the charge, Kambwili said “I totally don’t understand the charge.”

Later, Mr. Mweemba said the indictment was vague and ambiguous but Mr. Zimba responded that there should not be any attack on the proceedings. After scrutiny of the indictment, Mr. Zimba proposed some amendments to the dates between which Kambwili is alleged to have committed the offence and to some typographical errors in some Bemba words he is said to have used.

The court then granted the application to amend the indictment and ordered complainant, New Congress Party (NCP) president Peter Chanda, to file a fresh indictment with amended words, after which the case was adjourned to November 25, 2019.