By NOEL IYOMBWA and FRANCIS CHIPALO
I HAVE information that people who are holding the Hatembo siblings planned to release them after nominations so they should set them free now, Forum for Democracy and Development president Edith Nawakwi has demanded.
And the Democracy and Motherland Defenders Coalition (DMDC) has charged that anyone who has participated in the abduction of the Hatembos must face the full wrath of the law because you cannot hold a person captive against their own will. To page 3
Ms Nawakwi said she feared that people who abducted the siblings, Pheluna and Milton, would do something worse when they fail to find a suitable way of releasing them.
She said in an interview yesterday that the country has gone into election mode, forgetting the two lives of innocent Zambians.
She challenged the police to come out and tell the nation what was going on regarding the Hatembos.
Ms Nawakwi said the matter had been buried because of the election campaigns which was not supposed to be the case.
“We know that they were being held so that someone can successfully file in his nominations so now that the nominations are done let him release them,” she said.
She alleged that the Hatembos must be released because someone had achieved the purpose of why he was holding them.
And Coalition spokesperson, Andrew Ntewewe told Journalists in Lusaka yesterday that when DMDC raised concern and demanded that the Hatembos be released by their abductors, the move was done for no other reason but in the interest of Human Rights.
Mr Ntewewe said it was wrong to hold a person against their will, adding that the perpetrators should be held accountable.
“When we raised concern on the missing Hatembos, we did so believing that no individual should be held captive by anyone. We did so because the Hatembos are citizens like any other and that nobody should forcefully kidnap or imprison them,” Mr Ntewewe said.
Pheluna and her brother Milton have been missing for three months since appearing at a public press briefing following the collapse of their case in which they had used UPND leader Haikainde Hichilena over an alleged fraudulent acquisition of their Kalomo farm no, 1224.
The Hatembo siblings have not been seen by their family despite pleas that Pheluna’s ailing daughter needed care on a 24 hours basis because they can not clean herself or eat by herself.
