By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
A WITNESS has told the court that that he slowly disengaged himself from the central activities of the United Party for National Development (UPND) after realising that it was engaging in criminal activities against the country.
Lusaka business executive, Emmanuel Chilekwa told the court that UPND had allegedly tasked its vice-president for politics, Canisius Banda to be in talks with a named country to install Hakainde Hichilema.
Mr Chilekwa testified before Lusaka magistrate Felix Kaoma that he reported the ‘evil’ activities by the UPND to police commissioner at State House and foreign affairs minister, Harry Kalaba.
This is in a matter in which Lusaka lawyer, Martha Mushipe is charged with seditious practices.
Mr Chilekwa told the court that in July, 2015 he was called for a meeting at Mushipe’s law firm via a whatsapp group named Team Slyvia which was in charge of organising Sylvia Masebo’s re-election as Chongwe member of Parliament (MP) in the 2016 elections.
He said that when he got to the meeting he found other people were already there and Ms Mushipe chaired a meeting with eight people in attendance.
Mr Chilekwa said that the participants were made to sign a confidential form committing that they would not disclose what was going to be discussed in the meeting.
He said that their phones were taken away from them to ensure that no one was recoding what was being said in the meeting and there was no leakage.
Mr Chilekwa further alleged that the people in attendance were told that they had been identified as good strong people to defend the UPND from the PF violence and intimidation.
He said that a document was produced by Mushipe and was headed “strategy to dominate UPND 2015 and beyond” and it had three signatories at the bottom among them that of former Justice minister, Ngosa Simbyakula.
Mr Chilekwa claimed that the six paged documents had sub titles some of which read “Presenting UPND as a valid party”, ‘Use of food as a tool” and “Media suppression”.
He said that a team dubbed “Crack squad “was formed and its aim was to counter the PF violence.
Mr Chilekwa said the squad was in other words meant to do ‘fire for fire’ or ‘violence for violence’.
He said that when he realised that the meeting was not a well-intended mission as it bordered on criminal activities against the country, he slowly started disengaging himself from central activities of the UPND.
Mr Chilekwa said he narrated to Mr Kalaba and the police commissioner at State House what was discussed in the meeting.
He said that he also availed the commissioner a document which was availed to him by Dr Banda who stated that he was assigned a task with a named country to install Mr Hichilema.
Before he could finish his statement, one of Mushipe’s defence lawyers Nelly Mutti objected to Mr Chilekwa’s line of evidence.
He later told the court that he had finished with his evidence.
Mr Kaoma has since adjourned the matter to April 25, 2017 for the cross examination.