Malawi High Court sentences former Justice Minister to 13-year imprisonment

The High Court in Lilongwe, Malawi, Tuesday sentenced former Justice Minister, Raphael Kasambara, to a 13-year jail term for conspiring to murder the country's former Budget Director, Paul Mphwiyo.

The Lilongwe High Court Judge, Justice Michael Mtambo, on July 21 found the former minister guilty and two others, former Malawi Defense Force officer MacDonald Kumwembe and business person Pika Manondo, guilty of conspiracy to murder, and attempted murder of Phwiyo.

Manondo and Kumwembe have been respectively sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment for attempted murder and 11-year imprisonment for conspiring to murder the former Budget Director.

The two's sentences are to run consecutively, meaning that Manondo and Kumwembe will each spend 26 years behind bars.

Kasambara, a renowned lawyer and trainer, and the two were arrested after they were implicated in the shooting of former Budget Director, Mphwiyo, at the gates of his residence in Lilongwe on the night of August 13, 2013.

The former Budget Director was air-lifted to South Africa where he underwent a successful surgery before he came back for a long legal battle against his assailants.

Mphwiyo's shooting unraveled the historic plunder of public funds in Malawi known as cashgate that saw hundreds of billions of kwacha go into the pockets of some civil servants.

Meanwhile over ten men and women have been convicted of cashgate and they are currently serving jail terms while over 70 cases of cashgate are yet to be heard by court.

The former Budget Director too was arrested in 2014 on charges of money laundering, theft and conspiracy to defeat course of justice.

His wife, Thandie Mphwiyo, was also charged with money laundering and theft and their cases are still in court. Endit