Present Findlay before court, lawyer demands
By Charles Musonda
THE Zambia Police Service has again failed to present Lusaka business executive Valden Findlay before a court for prosecution over the espionage charge slapped on him.
Findlay, 63, was arrested on March 31 and was scheduled to appear in court on April 17 but the police extended his bond to Friday last week.
According to his lawyer Milner Katolo, Findlay’s bond was again extended to May 7.
“We should not go to court but to police service headquarters where we will be advised whether the case is ready for presentation to court or not. For us the biggest concern is that you rush to arrest someone in gestapo manner where you literally abduct him as if there is something very urgent, you put him in cells for four days and then you start playing around like this without presenting him to court,” Katolo said.
“It seems to suggest that there were some other motives other than real prosecution in a criminal case and this is serious and it shows that at the time of arrest they were not ready,” Katolo said in an interview with The Mast yesterday.
He said it seemed police were using this time to gather whatever evidence they want to gather but the law is clear and there is enough jurisprudence that someone cannot be arrested pending investigations.
“Do your investigations, you conclude, when you are ready you effect an arrest and quickly present that person to court so that they can have their day in court. But this is not what we are seeing happening,” Katolo said.
“Even what the President was saying that don’t arrest people before you are ready is now just mere rhetoric because the police can ignore it with impunity and nothing is happening,” he said.
