Sikota Calls for Release of Mundubile, Zulu and Co-Accused Over Stalled Investigations

Lawyer Sakwiba Sikota has called for the immediate release of NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubile, his running mate Makebi Zulu and 16 others accused of treason and seditious practices, saying prosecutors have not completed investigations more than two weeks after…

Lawyer Sakwiba Sikota has called for the immediate release of NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubile, his running mate Makebi Zulu and 16 others accused of treason and seditious practices, saying prosecutors have not completed investigations more than two weeks after their arrests. Sikota, who represents the group, said it was appalling that Director of Public Prosecutions Gilbert Phiri told the media the accused would only be taken to court once investigations were finished. He argued that admission alone proves the group was arrested before the state had established the evidence needed to justify holding them, describing it as an inversion of the proper legal process in which suspects should be investigated first and arrested once evidence exists, not the reverse. He said law enforcement authorities should investigate and establish sufficient evidence before making arrests, adding that keeping suspects in custody while investigations remain under way amounts to precisely that inversion.

He cited the earlier detention of 42 NRPUP officials at Chelstone police station as a precedent, noting the state failed to file an affidavit in response to a habeas corpus application in that case and the officials were eventually released after nearly three weeks in custody. Sikota also dismissed reports of suspected poisoning among the current detainees, saying his clients were in relatively good health, though he said he remained concerned about their conditions and had been repeatedly denied access to them. None of the 18 accused, who include Mundubile and Zulu, has been convicted, and the treason and sedition charges against them have not yet been tested in court.

The pair were first charged with treason on 27 August alongside 16 others following the 14 August raid on Mundubile’s residence, during which former Cabinet minister Mutotwe Kafwaya was fatally shot, and were transferred to Mukobeko Maximum Correctional Facility the following day. On 11 September, while still awaiting their first court appearance on the treason charge, Mundubile and Zulu were further arrested and jointly charged with seditious practices, meaning neither man had been brought before a court on either charge more than two weeks into their detention. The Constitution requires arrested or detained persons to be brought before a court as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within 48 hours of arrest, a threshold civil society groups say has already been breached in this case.

A separate petition filed with the Attorney-General and the Zambia Correctional Service Commissioner-General has raised allegations of unlawful detention, denial of access to lawyers and family members, and in some cases inhuman and degrading treatment amounting to torture, including waterboarding, affecting 18 people detained in connection with the matter. Those allegations have not been independently verified, but rights groups say they require urgent and transparent investigation given the seriousness of the claims.

Veteran politician Katele Kalumba has separately argued that Phiri’s own public comments prove the treason case was built on arrests made before evidence was gathered, saying the Director of Public Prosecutions should be an independent official who follows the rule of law regardless of political pressure. Kalumba said keeping people in custody without cause was aimed at instilling fear, describing it as an enemy of democracy, and pointed to the case of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy’s founder, Anderson Mazoka, who was allowed to petition an election result after losing without facing arrest, as evidence that the current approach breaks with precedent.

Sikota’s intervention adds legal weight to wider civil society concern, including from a five-organisation consortium and former Attorney-General Musa Mwenye, that Zambia’s post-election security response has drifted from established due-process standards. The Director of Public Prosecutions has said investigations are continuing and that the accused will appear in court once they are complete, a position Sikota and Kalumba both say inverts the order in which arrest and evidence-gathering are supposed to occur. Neither Mundubile nor Zulu has been able to campaign or organise politically since their arrest, a point their lawyer says compounds the harm of what he considers an unjustified detention, and the case is likely to remain a focal point for both domestic and international scrutiny of Zambia’s post-election conduct until the men are either formally charged with sufficient evidence or released.