Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) president Sean Tembo says the party will report the recent attack on his party by some suspected PF cadres during a peaceful protest last week to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

And Tembo has insisted that acting Lusaka province chairperson Paul Moonga was one of those who attacked him.

At a press briefing, Thursday, Tembo said police reluctance to investigate the matter had forced the party to report the matter to the ICC.

“For us, we are going to pursue justice and we will find justice. It has come apparent to us that the police are not willing to give us justice. And since we are very desirous of getting justice in this matter, the party made a decision that when you look at the variable involved that we were terrorized and the police continued reluctance in this matter, it is evident that the police pulled away from protecting us. We have made a decision that the terrorism we suffered is either directly or indirectly sponsored by the government of Zambia,” Tembo said.

“In that regard, we as a party have made the painful decision to report this terrorism we suffered to other courts outside of this jurisdiction and we have decided to report the matter to the International Criminal Court. We will file a complaint like they file normal complaints everywhere else. The ICC will make decision whether it is something worth investigating.”

He said the party was disappointed by the police reluctance.

“We basically left everything in the hands of the police. However, the recent conduct of the police is something that has been very disappointing to us. Mr Nelson Phiri the Commissioner of Police for Lusaka Province has been issuing a number of false statements; the first statement that Mr Phiri issued was on Friday last week after the attack that myself and some party members ‘failed to report the matter at the police’, that statement is false because we went and reported at the police the same day around 21:00 hours. That statement from the entire commissioner is false. We don’t want to speculate why the commissioner decided to use that false statement, but it is a false statement. False statement number two which came from the police was that we failed to identify the assailants that attacked us,” he said.

“To the contrary, the first time we reported to the police we made it very clear that we had identified our attackers and among our attackers was Mr Paul Moonga and Mr Rueben Banda. So it is not something we slept over and said ‘who do we accuse for this crime?’ And randomly we picked some people. False statement number three the police commissioner issued a statement that the statements that our people made were conflicting and that it was difficult to prosecute the matter.”

And Tembo insisted that he was attacked by Moonga.

“I was able to identify the person who had nothing (bare hands), the one who was punching as Mr Paul Moonga; the acting PF Lusaka province chairman. He is unmistaken to me, I could not have missed him for anybody else; he has very distinct features and I know him from political circles. The second person who had a panga in his hands, I identified him as Rueben Banda, again I know Rueben from political circles,” insisted Tembo.