Treason trial for Malawi Vice President slated for May

The long-awaited treason trial of Malawi’s Vice President, Cassim Chilumpha, will start in May 2008, and the hearing will be open to the public, his lawyer Viva Nyimba said Tuesday.

Chilumpha was arrested in April 2006 along with two businessmen — Yusuf Matumula and Rashid Nembo — for allegedly attempting to assassinate President Bingu wa Mutharika and overthrow his then two-year old government.

Defence lawyer Nyimba said the High Court indicated that the trial would commence in May this year in the southern commercial city of Blantyre, where the VP still lives in his posh official quarters but under a limited regime of house arrest, where he is allowed to travel anywhere in the country — with the permission of the authorities.

« We are returning to the High Court this week to face Justice Nyirenda to agree on the exact dates the case should commence in May, » said Nyimba, after the court overruled an application by the state to have its witnesses testify incognito.

The State applied to court to have the witnesses, a South African and Malawian based in South Africa, to testify in camera, wear a hood to keep their identities a secret, and that the media should be barred from taking their pictures and that their voices be distorted for fear of recognition.

The alleged assassins are said to have been hired by Chilumpha and businessman Matumula, who are both members of the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF), to assassinate Mutharika.