Police, MRA raid MCP legal chief’s offices

Malawi Police and Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) officers on Friday raided offices of private practice lawyer and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) director of legal affairs George Kadzipatike in Lilongwe and Mzuzu. The lawyer said in an interview yesterday that the matter relates to alleged tax issues, but wondered why the public tax collector moved to have the taxpayer arrested instead of collecting the dues. “This action by MRA confirms my fears that I am being victimised for representing MCP and opposition figures in their cases in the courts and for being among the legislators standing up for justice in the ad-hoc parliamentary committee on the Chikangawa plane crash inquiry,” he claimed.

Kadzipatike also said his clients are worried that MRA has taken a lot of files from the two law offices, and they have seized personal computers from five lawyers at his firm. “I would like to take this opportunity to assure all clients that business at my law firm has not been disrupted. We have electronic backup for all the files and where need be, we are going to be photocopying their files from the courts,”he said.

National Police deputy spokesperson Alfred Chimthere said yesterday that he needed time to engage the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on the matter before providing a response. MRA head of corporate affairs Wilma Chalulu was yet to respond to our questions by press time yesterday. Sources confided in The Nation that at least 20 police officers were involved in the raid.