FDD leader Edith Nawakwi’s step children have appealed to the High Court against the Magistrate Court’s decision to dismiss a complaint in which they accused the former of interfering with their late father’s estates.

Mulundu Hambulo has, on behalf of his siblings, applied to appeal out of time and has further filed four grounds of appeal.

He has argued that the trial court misdirected itself in law when it dismissed the complaint on ground that the complainant ought to be an administrator of the estate to sustain the proceedings.

Mulundu argues that the trial court wrongly and without any lawful justification found that since he and his brother’s appointment as administrator was contested, the complaint was prematurely before court.

He also argues that under all the circumstances of the case, the dismissal of the complaint was unsafe, unsatisfactory and against the weight of the evidence, and further that the trial court having correctly ruled that the charge be amended, misdirected itself in law and in fact when it dismissed the complaint instead of staying the proceedings, pending litigation in the High Court.

Mulundu who is one of the six children of the late Geoffrey Hambulo had on behalf of himself and five others, lodged a complaint in the Lusaka Magistrates’ Court against Nawakwi over his late father’s estate.

Particulars of the offence in the matter alleged that Nawakwi between December 2021 and January 2022 moved a planter (John Deer), Sherrer; Forklifter; Cutter and Baileigh, which properties form part of the estate of the late Hambulo to her farm in Chisamba.

It was also alleged that Nawakwi between January 24 and 25, 2022 declined to handover keys to properties forming part of the estate of the late, and that she had continued to tell people who were supposed to handover property forming part of the estate and the tenants renting flats at Plot No. 54, Luwato Road, Roma, Lusaka to ignore the letters of administration issued by the High Court, labelling them as fake so that she could collect the same.

It was further alleged that between January 12 and 25, 2022, Nawakwi continued to claim the deceased’s farm as her own and threatening the administrators and using insulting language against them.

Mulundu argued that Nawakwi would continue intermeddling with his father’s estate if she was not stopped.

Nawakwi had appeared before Lusaka magistrate Nthandose Chabala where she pleaded not guilty to the charge of intermeddling.

Nawakwi also urged the court to dismiss the complaint as there was already another case pending in court bordering on the same issues.

The magistrate court dismissed the complaint, a decision which has prompted Nawakwi’s step son to appeal to the High Court.