Document irregularities derail Kambwili freedom, as cops nab wife, daughter

IRREGULAR documentation has seen forgery convict Chishimba Kambwili spend the seventh night in prison.

Lusaka High Court deputy Registrar David Simusamba, who sits as Principal Resident Magistrate, yesterday said filing of the notice of appeal and application for bail by Kambwili before he adjourned the matter was irregular.

Mr. Simusamba said the law required that Kambwili who still has to answer to two cases of corruption and 37 counts of being in possession of properties reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime could only file an application for notice to appeal and bail after the court had convicted and sentenced him. The bail application will now be heard tomorrow.

And police yesterday apprehended and detained Kambwili’s wife Carol and daughter Chanda for alleged disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer arising from restrictions on entering the Lusaka

Magistrates’ Court complex in line with Covid-19 prevention measures.

Kambwili’s family’s hopes of seeing him outside prison walls were dashed further yesterday after Mr. Simusamba adjourned to tomorrow his ruling on whether or not the convict’s notice of appeal and bail application were competently before him.

Mr. Simusamba will decide whether to proceed with hearing Kambwili’s applications he made shortly after he sentenced him to two years imprisonment with hard labour after convicting him for forgery and uttering false documents last Wednesday.

Kambwili’s family’s anguish was worsened by the State’s decision not to bring him to court yesterday and his lawyers suspected that the warrant to ferry him to court might not have been signed.

When the matter came up yesterday, one of the defence lawyers Eddie Mwitwa told the court that the convict’s application for notice of appeal and application for bail had just been filed.