Fugitive Prophet Shepherd Bushiri has in an exclusive interview last night revealed how he left South Africa where he faces money laundering, fraud and corruption charges.
The alleged escape of Major 1, as he is fondly called by his follower, nearly caused a diplomatic row between Malawi and South Africa.
Several South African politicians and media houses alleged that the controversial prophet was smuggled using President Lazarus Chakwera’s presidential jet.
Bushiri’s escape was discovered just a few hours before Chakwera’s departure for Malawi in his maiden official trip as President to the rainbow nation.
The mysterious escape resulted in the Malawian president being detained for several hours before being cleared to take off by South African intelligence officials.
But in an interview with one of the local TV stations, Bushiri revealed how he left South Africa by playing ignorance of his mode of transport.
“To this day, I don’t know how I left South Africa. There was fire and I had to leave but I do not know how I left. It was only God who rescues from danger His people in His own ways”, said Bushiri.
Bushiri is currently in his home country Malawi where he is fighting extradition to South Africa. He revealed his arrival just a few hours after Chakwera’s plane touched down at the Kamuzu International Airport around 1am on Friday.
It has been reported in an alleged comprehensive work of investigation by the Sunday Independent that Bushiri, together with his alleged partner-in-crime wife, Mary Bushiri, applied cosmetics like spy agents in the cold-war era to escape detection when they left South Africa.
The paper, while fingering out Chakwera’s direct involvement claimed in its report that the Malawi government issued the two fugitives new diplomatic passports before being smuggled in President Chakwera’s chartered presidential jet.
In its report, the paper alleged that President Chakwera was aware of the plot and gave it a greenlight.
“Fugitive prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his wife, Mary, were issued with diplomatic passports bearing decoy names and applied with cosmetic facial changes before being smuggled out of South Africa in Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera’s hired jet” alleged the report, citing intelligence sources privy to the investigations of how Bushiri vanished in South Africa only to appear in Malawi coincidentally on the same date that Chakwera landed at the Kamuzu International Airport from his 2-day-trip in South Africa.
The Bushiris were allegedly issued with “diplomatic passports bearing decoy names and applied with cosmetic facial changes before being smuggled out of South Africa in Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera’s hired jet”.
The couple is wanted for fraud, theft and money laundering about K6 billion in two separate cases. Hearing on their extradition charges has commenced in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe.
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