COURT RETAINS KAFWAYA DEATH, RAID EVIDENCE

State’s objection partly dismissed as court allows Mundubile and Zulu’s explanation for seeking refuge at UN premisesTHE court hearing the constitutional bail application by Brian Mundubile, Makebi Zulu and 16 others has declined to strike out affidavit passages concerning the reported killing of Mutotwe Kafwaya and video footage of a raid on Mr Mundubile’s residence, according to a defence briefing.The defence said the court ruled that the contested material answered the State’s allegation that Mr Mundubile and Mr Zulu were flight risks because they had entered United Nations premises and emerged only after negotiations.However, the court upheld part of the State’s objection, striking out two other paragraphs for introducing additional material.Briefing journalists during a break in proceedings, a defence representative said the State had sought to expunge paragraphs 6, 19, 20, 21 and 22 of the petitioners’ affidavit.The court agreed that paragraphs 6 and 21 contained extraneous material, but allowed paragraphs 19, 20 and 22 to remain.According to the defence account, the court considered the allegation that the two petitioners were flight risks sufficiently serious to require an explanation of how they came to seek refuge at the UN facility.Their explanation was that they feared for their lives following events that included the reported killing of Mr Kafwaya.“The court said this was a serious allegation … which required them to give an explanation of how they found themselves in the UN facility,” the defence representative said.The court also declined to exclude paragraph 22, which contained a video exhibit described by the defence as showing State agents breaking into Mr Mundubile’s Kabulonga residence.According to the briefing, the court referred to Section 9 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act No. 4 of 2021 in explaining that evidence could not be excluded merely because it was a data message.The defence said the court also considered the footage relevant to explaining the petitioners’ fear for their lives and their decision to enter the UN premises.The ruling allows the contested material to remain before the court; it does not itself determine the truth of the allegations contained in it.Following the ruling, the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions presented their substantive arguments opposing constitutional bail.According to the defence representative, the State maintained that there had been no excessive delay in bringing the accused to trial, arguing that the seriousness of the matter required substantial time for investigations.The State’s position, as described in the briefing, was that periods of 60 or 90 days were not excessive in the circumstances.The defence representative said the DPP referred to previous treason prosecutions dating from 1967 through to the case involving Hakainde Hichilema, arguing that constitutional bail had not been granted in those matters and that the court should not depart from that approach.The defence said it would distinguish those earlier cases from the present proceedings when the hearing resumed at 15:00 hours.“So now it is our turn to go in there and respond strongly and persuade the court on why constitutional bail must be granted in this particular case,” the representative said.Meanwhile, the defence said it could not confirm reports that Bishop Trevor Mwamba and two others had been discharged from the treason matter.The representative said information had emerged that the three were called to police headquarters the previous evening and asked to give ordinary statements following earlier warn-and-caution statements.While suggesting that this could indicate a possible change in their status, the defence stressed that the outcome remained uncertain.“What will follow is yet to be seen,” the representative said.At the time of the briefing, Bishop Mwamba and the two others remained part of the proceedings, with the court considering the constitutional bail application for all 18 petitioners.No ruling on the substantive bail application had been announced at that stage.

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COURT RETAINS KAFWAYA DEATH, RAID EVIDENCE