The High Court in Lilongwe has ordered the state to bring to South African witnesses to Malawi to testify before court in Prophet Shepherd Bushiri’s extradition case.
This comes after last year the Chief Resident Magistrate Madalitso Chimwaza ruled that South African witnesses in the extradition case of Prophet Bushiri and his wife Mary, should give evidence physically while in South Africa.
However, the suspects were not satisfied with the ruling and through their lawyer Wapona Kita, they applied for an appeal arguing that the South African witnesses had to be physically in court in Malawi to testify in their extradition case.
Delivering his ruling on the appeal application on Monday morning, Judge Bruno Kalemba has asked the state to make all necessary arrangements for the South African witnesses to be available at the magistrate court and testify.
Reacting to the ruling, Prophet Bushiri through a Facebook post said he is delighted with the court’s decision on their application and says he is ready to meet the South African witnesses in the Malawian court.
“A milestone victory for us in our case! The High Court in Malawi has ruled that witnesses, to be specific, those that arrested us and recorded cases against us (investigators) be physically present in Malawi for cross examination by our lawyers.
“We welcome this fair ruling and we look forward to meeting them in court where we will exercise our right to cross examine them for a fair ruling. Thank you everyone for your continued support. We will continue to pray for you as you pray for us,” reacted Bushiri.
Prophet Bushiri said when they came to Malawi, they spoke about how unfairly they were being treated in South Africa saying they opened cases of extortion against some of the South African investigators and surprisingly the same accused officers arrested them and added that they survived assassination attempts.
“We also survived assassination attempts after we opened cases against some individuals in the Republic of South Africa and they have records of these cases in the Police and Judicial systems which we believe to be vital in our case,” he added.
Prophet Bushiri and his wife Mary fled to Malawi in 2020 after being granted bail. In South Africa, they are expected to answer charges of fraud and money laundering.
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