PF members will get same prison treatment they’re giving CK when their time comes – NDC

21st October 2020

Local

UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema with the party mobilization chairperson Sylvia Masebo plead with the police officers to allow them inside after they were denied entry at Lusaka Magistrates Court on October 20, 2020 - Picture by Tenson Mkhala

Local

UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema with the party mobilization chairperson Sylvia Masebo plead with the police officers to allow them inside after they were denied entry at Lusaka Magistrates Court on October 20, 2020 - Picture by Tenson Mkhala

THE PF is setting a bad precedent by refusing political leaders to visit Chishimba Kambwili in prison because they may one day face the same situation, says NDC deputy national chairperson for mobilisation Fabian Mutale.

Meanwhile, Prison Service Commissioner General Chisela Chileshe says the Commission will issue a comprehensive statement on the State’s continued refusal to allow Kambwili’s well-wishers a chance to see him in prison.

In an interview, Mutale, who is also Kamwili’s private secretary, bitterly complained that party members were denied access to their leader in prison unless they got clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“This issue of asking political leaders to ‘get permission or clearance to visit the convict or any person that is in prison’, it’s a bad precedent they are setting because by law, a convict or a remandee or any other person that is in incarceration has a right to be visited. This is why we say that this regime is full of corrupt and prison-bound people! What will happen is that by the time they go to prison, they will find that we will have passed a law that says, ‘for anyone to visit a known political criminal should have parliamentary approval.’ What are they going to do? Their time will come. Like General Kanene said that, jele banapangila bantu (jail was meant for people),” Mutale said.

He complained that only a selected number of Kambwili’s family members had so far been allowed to visit him.

“They have only allowed him (Chishimba Kambwili) to provide a list of family members that can be taking food at particular times. And if your name is not on that list, which is just less than 10 and only family members, they are not allowed to visit him without clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs, if they are not on that list. And this is in connection to what happened on Monday when the Alliance partners visited him, including Saviour Chishimba,” said Mutale.

And when asked why people had been denied access to Kambwili, Chileshe said: “On that one, we will make a statement. I will give the details to the PRO so that we give a statement to all the news houses and the media,” said Chileshe in a brief separate interview.