BLANTYRE–Noel Masangwi, the DPP regional chair for the south, is one of the people named in the mysterious murder of Polytechnic student Robert Chasowa.
 
Others fingered in the report which was published by the Daily Times were DPP’s director of Youth Lewis Ngalande, police officers Stanford Horea and Sub-inspector Yuda, boxing promoter Mike Chitenje, Dofu Geoffrey Botoman, Sam Chulu, Stoni John, Frank Julius, Harry Makina, Chikondi Mwamvera, Isaac Osman, Elias Phiri and Petros Phiri.

The newspaper said most of these appeared before an inquiry set up by the Joyce Banda administration to establish the cause of the death.
In the main story headlined 'EXPOSED', the daily quotes a section of the report which was recently presented to Banda.

The president has said those responsible for the mysterious murder of student activist Chasowa, who was a critic of the late president Bingu wa Mutharika,  will “face the full force of law” after a state-funded commission of inquiry on the death that shocked the nation last year presented its report to her.

“Anyone responsible will face the full force of law.We will leave nothing undone to ensure that justice is not only done but also seen to be done,” Banda told commissioners  at State House in Lilongwe, in remarks broadcast on state radio.

“Let the blood of Robert Chasowa be a lesson to all, that taking human life is not a light issue,” she added, without giving details of the report.

Chasowa, an engineering student who was president of a youth rights group at the Polytechnic in Blantyre, which was critical of the Mutharika regime, was found in a blood of pool at the campus last September, with Police saying he had committed suicide.

Mutharika critics had accused the police of being behind Chasowa’s death and former police chief Peter Mukhito, a close ally of Mutharika and who was immediately sacked by Banda after she was sworn in as President, was implicated in the matter.   

Banda, who was sworn in as President two days after Mutharika died of heart failure on April 5, launched the inquiry saying: "As a mother, I feel for my fellow mother who doesn't know what killed her son. I understand how painful it is, and I will make sure we find out who killed our son Chasowa," Banda said.

She said she did not want “ people to go about murdering people fearlessly."

Supreme court of Appeal judge  Andrew Nyirenda, who chaired the commission, told the President:”The ultimate findings of the commission is that Robert Chasowa was murdered.”

He said  the findings were based on entire testimony of witnesses, which he said “in some instances were lucid and unmistaken.”

Nyirenda said a post-mortem examination report enabled the commission, which included a pathologist, “to determine, with a degree of certainty, the cause and circumstances of Robert Chasowa’s death,” he added.

Some 94 witnesses were interviewed after they were summoned, but only four witnesses volunteered the information.
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© The Maravi Post 2012.  Reproduction without acknowledgement prohibited