By Staff Reporter
Our calls to Chishimba Kambwili were going unattended, says police
Speaking with Daily Revelation, deputy police public relations officer Danny Mwale who seemed unaware that police had stormed Kambwili’s house, asking “they stormed his house in the morning?” when asked about the action by the police.
“Okay, I missed that one, all I was told is that he was invited to come to police headquarters today. Yes! I missed that one that police officers went to his house. I thought he came on his own,” he said.
Asked why police stormed his house when the accused person indicated that he would show up before them today, Mwale insisted that he missed the incident where police stormed Kambwili’s house.
“But if that happened then what we can say as police (is) we’ve had calls to have him come to police headquarters. I am sure they would have seen that calls were going unattended to, maybe that’s my reaction to that. So they decided to follow him up,” Mwale said, saying if one has been called via a callout it was just out of respect and a member of the public was asked to comply respectfully. “But if you wake up and give these reasons, tomorrow you wake up and give the other reasons I am sure officers they just have to follow you.”
Mwale said that was the “impression” he got, saying Kambwili was supposed to report to police last week but that there was a reason he gave.
“But the bottom line I had missed the point where they had gone because they told me yesterday to say that today they expected him to come. When I reported for work I just heard that he’s being interrogated,” Mwale said. “If they followed him then probably they had an impression to say that the time that was given he was not forthcoming. Maybe! Because if he had an invitation to come and then they should have agreed on time. So maybe when that time elapsed they had no option.”
Asked on the frequent arrests of political figures in the country and what message he thought that is sending, with some sections believing that police is being used to persecute opposition figures, Mwale said it was not that the police was being used by those in power because “an offence is an offence” despite who commits it.
He said there were many people who were committing offences everyday only that they were not pubic figures, but the arrest became more pronounced when it involved politicians.
“So it’s not that police are being used. No! We are just doing our work but in the process we bump into somebody whose name is in public domain,” said Mwale, adding that there were politicians who were “quiet” and some even drinking tea in shopping malls and police was not following them up. “I would say that police are just doing their work and by the end of the day you find that there are people who are complaining like in the case involving Kambwili.”
He said co-accused Charles Kakula was picked a week ago and all along the police has been wanting to “pick this man (Kambwili) until today.”
He said if they were used many people would be in custody but they were professionals who presented those people they arrested before the courts.
Kanbwili was arrested today and charged with unlawful assembly, but said that police stormed his house just to create a scene and terrorized his family members in the process even when his lawyers had informed that that he would appear before them today.
The PF presidential aspirant was not home when police stormed his house, but presented himself before them the moment he returned.
