NDC spokesperson Saboi Imboela has wondered how police bee able to quickly identify suspects connected to the beating of Justice Minister Given Lubinda when PF cadres who were linked to the death of Obed Kasongo are still at large.

On April 11, Kasongo who was Lusaka Province chairperson for the opposition National Democratic Congress was hacked by alleged PF officials and sustained deep injuries before he was taken to Levy Mwanawasa hospital where he later died.

Before his death, Kasongo reported the assault case to Luanshya police after which Copperbelt Province Police Commissioner Charity Katanga announced a launch of investigations into the matter, which have not yielded anything to date.

But after Lubinda was attacked and beaten by suspected PF cadres police arrested five people in connection to the attack, only two days after the matter was reported to Kabwata police.

Commenting on the developments in an interview, Imboela complained that the country’s justice system was so segregative.

“This is something we always complain about in Zambia. Justice is supposed to be for everyone, the law is supposed to protect everyone. No one should be above the law. But what normally happens here in Zambia is that some people are above the law. It’s all about who is from the ruling party, who is from the opposition and who is connected to who. But it shouldn’t be like that, when the law is created it’s supposed to protect everyone. But just the identification of the people who beat up honourable Given Lubinda which has happened so fast, it’s really so shocking. This just shows you that it’s just normally a matter of interest. It shows that a matter in which police are interested, they will do everything possible to make sure that the culprits are apprehended,” Imboela said.

“But in a matter which happened in Roan where somebody was even killed, up to now they are not even apprehending the suspects. And the suspects were named even before the person that was killed was killed, he went to the police and reported the matter and the dockets were opened. So it’s not like they are dealing with unknown people, no! These are people whose names were even published. So for me this breakdown of law is really so sad because this is what normally causes people to get so agitated and sometimes even rise against their authorities because when they feel that they are not protected or that they are not being given the justice that they deserve, people really become apprehensive.”

Asked what progress had been made in bringing culprits involved in the killing of Kasongo so far, Imboela said the case was better off closed because there was no progress at all.

“Everything is still the same… you know the police, they normally open up and just say ‘this is a sensitive matter, we have to wait for a word from above’ and you know the circumstances that they work under. So we just more or less just leave it. But then justice always comes around. And like they say human blood is bad, there is just a way that justice gets served. They may think they have gotten away with this or that but just from that incident, no one will get away with it. It will either happen today or tomorrow but justice will still be served,” said Imboela.

Meanwhile, when contacted for a comment to explain why police had not made any progress in identifying the suspects linked to the attacking and killing of the NDC official, Zambia Police Spokesperson Esther Katongo said the NDC must provide the required information if they wanted the Command to act on their complaint.

“Let them give us the information. It may be quick in other cases depending on the information being given to us. So even them, if they have information, let them give us and we will take quick action. You don’t compare cases, someone can be murdered today and you find suspects and arrest. But the other one would have been murdered two years or ten years ago and we still may not have information leading to that. So there is nothing like saying ‘no uyu mwamucita so (you have treated this one this way)’, it’s not like that. We go with the information which we have we have on hand. So if they (NDC) have leads to that [death] let them give us that information and we’ll be able to work on that case,” said Katongo.