President’s signature was forged – witness

A FORENSIC expert has testified before a Lusaka Magistrate's court that a letter purported to have been signed by President Edgar Lungu for land allocation in Petauke was fake and did not originate from State House.

The letter was addressed to acting District Commissioner.

He was testifying in a case in which a Lusaka resident, Richard Mutale, 43, of Makeni, is facing 11 counts of forgery, uttering false documents and obtaining money by false pretences.

Mutale is appearing before Lusaka Chief Resident Magistrate Lameck Mwale.

Mr David Zulu, 44, head of Questioned Documents (QD) section based at police service headquarters, said that on April, 8, 2019, he received three State House headed letters one of which was addressed to acting District Commission for Petauke.

Mr Zulu said he was also given a letter purportedly from the Ministry of Mines and a Government general receipt to check for their genuineness.

He also said accompanying the documents were random specimen signatures of President Lungu, the then Presidential Assistant for press and public relations, Amos Chanda, then Mines Permanent Secretary Paul Chanda and Mutale.

Mr Zulu said the purpose of the investigation was to ascertain if the persons were the ones who signed on the documents purportedly to have been authored by State House and Ministry of Mines.

He testified that after closely examining the letters and the provided specimen, he came to the conclusion that signatures on the documents were forged. The forged documents bore the handwriting and signature of Mutale.

He said although the documents looked genuine, all the purported letters from State House he examined were not genuine but generated through simulation.

The matter has been adjourned to September 4, this year for continued trial.