By Daily Revelation Reporter
A panel of three judges has granted Lusaka businessman Shadreck Kasanda and others bail pending trial in the sum of K500,000 in their own recognizance.
The accused will also provide two working sureties bound in the like sum and in their own recognizance. The court ordered that the accused persons shall surrender their respective valid passports to the registrar of the High Court.
“All the accused persons are hereby directed not to interfere with witnesses in a manner perverse to the interest of justice or inimical to the administration of justice. And not to publicly make subjudice comments through interviews or otherwise and all the accused persons are directed to respect all the tenets associated and connected to the furtherance of holding the proceedings hereof in camera. We accordingly order,” the judges ruled.
The court ruled that given the procedural shortcomings, albeit material, they found the certificate relied on by the state to block the grant of bail to the accused persons untenable, and that with the undertakings given by the defence lawyers that none of the accused persons is a flight risk, and there being no objection to that issue, the judges respectively admitted each of the accused persons to bail pending trial.
In this case, Kasanda who is jointly charged with Mahogany Airlines chief executive officer Jim Belemu, State House security officer and two others, is also charged with fraudulent dealings with metals and minerals, charges they have all denied committing.
Their cases are in connection with the Gold scandal that occurred at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (KKIA) in August this Year.
