GBM PUSHES FOR BAIL, APPEALS 5 YEAR SENTENCE
GBM PUSHES FOR BAIL, APPEALS 5 YEAR SENTENCE
AFTER a week in jail over corruption-related charges, former defense minister Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba is now pushing for his release.
Mwamba has applied for bail pending appeal against his jailing to the Economic and Financial Crimes Court (High Court division).
On October 9, 2024 Mwamba alias GBM was jailed five years by the Economic and Financial Crimes Court on eight counts of conflict of interest, four counts of possession of property suspected to be proceeds of crime, and fined home K50, 000 for money laundering.
Mwamba was facing 24 criminal charges among them; eight counts of conflict of interest, one count of money laundering and 15 counts of possessing property suspected to be proceeds of crime.
In his judgment magistrate Stanford Ngobola said Mwamba, having held the senior most position in the ministry as minister of defence, he was not supposed to allow his companies nor relatives to engage in business with the ministry he superintended over.
Magistrate Ngobola said Mwamba as a public servant owed his fiduciary duties to the public.
GBM has filed eight grounds of appeal on which he wants to challenge his conviction.
He argues that magistrate Ngobola erred in law and fact when he convicted him on eight counts of failure to declare interest contrary to section 28 (2) and (3) of the Anti-Corruption Act No.3 of 2012.
Mwamba said the trial Court erred in law and fact when it failed to attach any evidential weight to his declarations of interest which clearly demonstrated that such interest had been declared and the matter was previously closed after investigation by an earlier Joint Investigation Team in 2013.
“The learned trial magistrate erred in law and fact by holding that declaring interest in writing as required by section 28(2) is not enough to be absolved from the offence created by Act No.3 of 2012, thereby falling to appreciate that the law by itself declares an absolute defence against prosecution once an accused declares such interest,”he said.
“The trial Court erred in law when it relied on provisions of the Public Procurement Act in convicting the appellant in relation to Section 28(2) and (3) of the Anti-Corruption Act No. 3 of 2012.”
Mwamba stated that the trial court misdirected itself by convicting him on one count of money laundering and four counts of possessing property suspected to be proceeds of crime, when the source of the money was from government, which cannot be termed as
“tainted” or money laundering, or indeed proceeds of crime.
He said magistrate Ngobola misdirected himself and failed to appreciate that the contracts in question had all been perfected with the goods delivered to the Government of Zambia.
“The trial Court erred in its failure to appreciate that the payments to Curzon Global, HongKong was as a result of the High Court Judgement which is still valid to date,” argued Mwamba.
“The lower court also erred in law by ignoring the evidence of the accused and his witnesses when they put it before court that the accused was not involved in the running of his family businesses when he was holding public office.”
Hearing for his bail application has been adjourned to Wednesday .
Kalemba