By Daily Revelation Reporter
Chishimba Kambwili’s lawyer Kennedy Mambwe says the divisional criminal investigation officer for Northern Province has told them that he is waiting for directives from his superiors in Lusaka to give his client police bond.
Mambwe told Daily Revelation that Kambwili is still being held in police cells, where he is also being treated for an illness called Sleeptomania.
“He is saying that he is waiting for his superiors to clear him for him to give him bond. Now we have brought it to his attention that under Section 33 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it is him who is vested with the powers to grant the suspect bond. And it’s not subject to him confirming with any of the superiors, because that one comes as a matter of right unless there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the suspect may flee or may not attend court if he is released,” Mambwe said. “We have also told him to say this client is charged with a misdemeanor, an offence which has got an option of a fine. So based on that we said can you proceed and grant him police bond. But they are saying no, there is somebody that they need to confirm with first before they can exercise that discretion to grant him bond.”
Mambwe argued that the DCIO kept on saying “superiors, superiors” but that they have argued that the fact that Kambwili was arrested in Kasama meant that Kasama was the one with the jurisdiction to deal with the matter.
“They are saying they are waiting for those invisible superiors to authorize them. Because equally we are demanding as defence to say no, can the police give us a position. Is it that they have denied him police bond or not? They are not giving us a categorical answer. We started applying for this yesterday, immediately after the formal arrest which was done at 14:00 hours. So at 14:30 hours that’s when we requested for them to release him,” he said.
He said his client was being held at Kasama Central Police, and that because of his health condition, they have equally connected a machine called a sleep easy machine to treat his medical condition.
“So that was the reason why we were also saying that ‘but you are the ones that have connected that machine to the holding cells so why do you still keep on unjustly and unfairly keeping him?’” Mambwe said.
But asked on the nature of the sickness his client was being treated for, Mambwe said the illness was called sleeptomania, however, Mambwe said he did not know the nature of the same illness.
“I don’t know (the kind of sickness). You need to google it because the machine is called sleep easy machine,” said Mambwe.
