Africa-Press – Malawi. One of the witnesses from the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) failed to bring tangible evidence against former Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Reyneck Matemba that he never received any bribe from United Kingdom-based businessperson Zuneth Sattar.
When Matemba grilled the two British NCA witnesses on Tuesday, the duo told the court that none of the audios extracted from Zuneth Sattar’s phone that he listened to was a discussion between Sattar and Matemba for bribery.
During the cross-examination of first witness Meredith, he [Meredith] told the court that NCA provided “intelligence” to the ACB and that he came to Malawi to turn that information into “evidence”.
Second witness Reeves could not come clear on the bribery issue as he told the court that none of the audios extracted from Sattar’s phone— at least the audios he listened to— had a discussion between Sattar and Matemba. He, however, said there were some audios made in foreign languages which are yet to be interpreted.
He also told the court that despite that there were no messages shared between Matemba and Sattar, there were some messages that were shared between Sattar and his colleague, Ashok Nair, ordering him [Nair] to pay Matemba 10K, which he presumed is $10,000.
In some cases, the witness mentioned the figure as 5K. He said the messages read: “Matemba 5K”. He said they concluded that such messages were orders to pay the individuals money.
When Matemba, who is his own lawyer, requested that he be shown the message that showed the order and the money he received, the witness could not show him the text.
Matemba told Journalists outside the court that it is unfortunate that he has been “demonized, ridiculed, discriminated and insulted” for receiving bribes when he did not.
“The two witnesses said, right there in court, that none of the audios and WhatsApp messages that they shared with ACB contained any communication between me and Zuneth relating to the payment of bribery.
“If ACB had evidence that I received whether $5,000 or $10,000 from Zuneth Sattar, they would not have withdrawn their charges. As you know, I was initially arrested for receiving bribes. I have been insulted and discriminated against based on that information and, after one year, they decided to withdraw those charges,” Matemba said.
He has, therefore, described the issues raised by the witnesses as irrelevant, saying he is in court for failure to declare interest and not receiving a bribe as ACB withdrew that charge.
But ACB Principal Legal and Prosecution Officer Golda Rapozo insisted that there were some acts of bribery happening as stated by their witnesses. She, however, said, looking at the case, ACB decided to withdraw the bribery charges.
“They confiscated a phone through which they extracted messages and contracts between Mr Sattar and Malawi Government [officials].
“Mr Matemba stated that the ACB did not have any evidence when they arrested him on bribery charges. However, from what transpired in court today, it is clear that ACB had evidence but we decided that it is not the best evidence when you look at the threshold that we have to meet when it comes to criminal cases,” Rapozo said.
The case proceeds today before Financial Crimes Court Judge Chipawo. Initially, Matemba was alleged to have received $10,000 from Sattar to influence the award of contracts to his companies.
However, the graft-busting body amended the charges and now accuses Matemba of failing to declare his interest in a board meeting that reviewed and granted a no-objection for the Malawi Police Service’s food rations contract, worth $7,875,000.00, to be given to Xaviar Limited.
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