Police now go for The Post over election rigging claims
Joan, Kombe and Mukosha
Police in Lusaka have recorded a warn and caution statement from Post Newspaper journalists Joan Chirwa and Kombe Mataka.
This is in a matter where the Police is interrogating election rigging alerts to the opposition issued by Veteran politician Vernon Mwaanga.
The Post Newspaper carried a story quoting Mwaanga advising the opposition to be alert during tallying of results as the results could be manipulated.
On Monday, Chirwa who is Managing Editor, and reporter Mataka were interrogated for over three hours.
During interrogation last week on Friday, Mwaanga said he could not be held responsible for misrepresentation of his statement where he is quoted to have issued the rigging remark. He submitted the statement to the police.
And the Post reports that last Friday, police summoned Mataka and Post editor-in-chief Fred M’membe.
According to the two call-outs served at The Post head office in Lusaka around 14:00 hours, M’membe and Mataka were required to report to Lusaka Central Divisional Criminal Investigations officer Kashif Abtone Mphande at 16:00 hours the same day.
But M’membe was away attending to his doctoral thesis, forcing his lawyers to reschedule his appearance at the police to this afternoon while Mataka’s interview was re-scheduled to yesterday due to short notice.
When Mataka arrived at Lusaka Central Police around 10:05 hours in the company of lawyers Nchima Nchito and Chisuwo Hamwela, she was led to a conference room.
After over 40 minutes of waiting, Mataka was led to another room where police officers, who were led by Mphande, asked her to explain the Mwaanga story which she authored.
During the questioning, police wanted Mataka to explain where the “WATCH OUT FOR RIGGING – VJ” headline was picked from in the statement that Mwaanga had issued.
But after Chirwa-Ngoma explained to the officers that it was not part of the reporter’s responsibility to dictate headlines for the newspaper, Mphande, in consultation with his colleagues, decided that the managing editor should equally give a statement, which was subsequently recorded.
The process, which started at 10:50 hours, only ended at 14:10.
M’membe is expected to appear today afternoon, together with another reporter, Abel Mboozi, who also received a statement from Mwaanga.
Mwaanga was last Friday questioned by police over a statement he issued where he cautioned the opposition to strictly monitor and scrutinise the tallying of votes in this year’s general elections so that the process is not subjected to manipulation and abuse.
“These are burning issues which require to be seriously addressed in the interest of holding free, fair, transparent, credible democratic elections. The abuse of state resources and institutions, lack of openness in the electoral process, particularly at the tallying stage where it has been subjected to manipulation and abuse, election violence and the conduct of public media during elections,” stated Mwaanga.
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