BY JOANNA MACHINJIRI
It happened within a flash, in front of helpless uniformed police officers, bundled in a National College of Information Technology NACIT coaster, driven to Lumbadzi, Lingadzi, dumped at Linthipe police station before driven back to area 3 police unit where he was chained in the leg with iron bars, the question that everyone is asking is; who arrested human rights activist Sylvester Namiwa.
According to a video in circulation, one man wearing a dark blue suit, with a Sadc summit ID on his neck appeared from nowhere, and is seen conversing with one PMS officer, before moving closer to where Namiwa was addressing journalists. He is seen grabbing Namiwa by the shoulder and said “timafuna iweyo (we were looking for you)” something that some security analysts have described as strange because the police don’t do that when effecting an arrest.
After grabbing Namiwa two more men alighted and held Namiwa by the waist and pushed him to a standby NACIT coaster before whisking him away.
According to a well placed source at area 30 police headquarters, the police were taken unawares since they didn’t receive any orders to arrest Namiwa.
“We were only instructed to block the CDEDI members from reaching Parliament, if anything disperse them. Nobody in that team received orders to effect an arrest”, said our source.
Asked about the identity of the man who abducted Namiwa in full view of the police, our source confided in us that the man and two others are not police officers but have been working as members of the protocol committee at the ongoing SADC summit at the BICC.
However, our findings indicate that the man who grabbed Namiwa was once leader of the infamous Nsundwe battalion.
He is one of the people that were trained at Ntakakataka police training school as a paramilitary wing of MCP together the the other two men.
We have also learnt that the use of the NACIT coaster, which falls under the Ministry of Information was dully arranged by senior directors there.
After abducting Namiwa, they took him to Lingadzi, then Lumbadzi before driving him to an unknown destination.
The abfuctors were only warned of the consequences of their action by the Inspector General as they were passing through Dedza, hence dumping him at Linthipe police, before officers at Dedza police drove him back to area 3 police unit where according to our source, was chained on both legs with iron bars.
Meanwhile, Namiwa and 10 other CDEDI members have been granted bail by the NKukula magistrate court, in Lumbadzi, Dowa, in a typical judge shopping style.
