NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili says Obed Kasongo’s autopsy report, which shows that he died from hypertension and severe Malaria is a total fabrication which his party will strive to disprove.

And Kambwili says it is sheer rhetoric for President Edgar Lungu to pretend not to understand why police cannot take action against PF cadres.

In an interview, Sunday, Kambwili said NDC and Kasongo’s family were working on something to disprove the autopsy report which showed that the deceased did not suffer any trauma at the time of his death and that he also had viral infections and suffered from Pulmonary Edema which can be caused by viral infections such as the hantavirus and dengue virus or exposure to certain toxins.

“That’s a fake report but we are investigating; we are doing something between the family and the party, we will let the country know over that. That’s a cooked up autopsy report, it was pre-arranged, we know that. And that’s what happens when the government doesn’t care about its people, they care about their own stay in government and their own pockets. The best President Lungu can do is to allow the police to arrest that Bowman and let the job acquit him. It should not be the job of anyone to acquit anybody of matter, let evidence be adduced in court. We shall inform the nation over what we are doing, and heads will row,” Kambwili said.

“If we take it that he was not robbed, what about the case of aggravated robbery? Because he was robbed of K15,000 with pangas and they also had guns. He was hacked, three phones were stolen and one phone was taken to the police by Bowman Lusambo the following morning. He went and handed over his phone to the police, where did he get that phone from? He gave it to a woman constable who came and gave it to Obed and he said ‘no, I want you to put it in a statement that he came and gave you the phone to you.’ There is overwhelming evidence against that Lusambo, so let him tell the nation where he got Obed’s phone’s which was robbed at the scene of the incidence if he is saying he was not there, because the woman police constable is still there to testify that she was given the phone by Lusambo. So if they want us to belive their story that he was not murdered, how about the aggravated robbery case? What about the case of being hacked? Because all these are criminal offenses.”

Kambwili insisted that Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo was responsible for Kasongo’s death and accused President Lungu of shielding him.

“So all their actions point to the fact that they just want to protect him, but ‘kanofye Bowman ngatafyelwe kumwanakashi uwanshikuishinono panocalo’ (Unless Bowman was born from a woman), he will escape but ‘tuleimbananabo inamamumeno’ (we shall battle it out with them). And you can imagine the president to go and get a murder suspect to go and jog with him, the message he is sending is that even if you kill or rob a person, you are still my minister, as long as you are close to me, no one can touch you. To me, the President is being unreasonable because under normal circumstances, he would have told Lusambothat ‘let the investigations be done, you can’t even come and jog with me when you are a prime suspect in a murder case.’ So Lungu was telling us that he does not care about the lives of the Zambian people, all he cares about is his ministers because of the many deals they have done together,” he said.

“Icibemba citila ‘umulandu taubola, elyo ifilalafyamundayanam, ubucenjeshi bwankoko pungwa tasakamana’ (nothing remains hidden, an offense is not forgotten because of time). So no matter how they want to play this one; they are in for it. The same way he behaved when he slapped me at Parliament, is how he is behaving even now, he was refusing that he never slapped me. But he was found guilty of by parliament and was sanctioned, he comes to Luanshya and boasted that he slapped me; this is the man you want to believe when he says that he was not there when Obed was attacked? He is used to thuggery, he beat up major Richard Kachingwe, treated him like a small boy without respect; in fact that is not the only case about Kasongo and others, we have three other women in section 9 whom he assaulted and they have refused to give them medical reports by the officer in charge for Luanshya police.”

Asked to comment on State House spokesperson Amos Chanda’s statement that President Lungu was puzzled by police inaction against PF cadres, Kambwili said that was rhetoric.

“That’s rhetoric, those people do not do their work; if they were doing their work Lusambo could have been arrested. Why would he allow Lusambo to be running with him when he knew that he is a murder suspect? People who attacked me Kabwe are well known cadres, their constituency chairman came and said ‘my boys, our cadres’ and he was calling them by their names; why can’t they ask him about those thugs? So why have they not been arrested? What about the people who insulted me not being arrested when we gave them their numbers and they are found at intercity? So it’s mere rhetoric, when a President starts thinking that he is more clever than the people who elected him, fate will decide. I feel sorry for President Lungu because as far as I am concerned he is not fit to be President because he is full of rhetoric,” said Kambwili.