ABOUT 50 heavily armed police officers, apparently seeking firearms, raided the palace of Malawi’s late dictator Kamuzu Banda in the northern Kasungu district, an opposition politician said on Tuesday. Hetherwick Ntaba, an outspoken member of Banda’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP), said the police had a court warrant to search the largely unused hilltop palace, some 100 kilometres north of the administrative capital Lilongwe. The search comes in the wake of unconfirmed local media reports last week that the opposition was planning to assassinate resident Bakili Muluzi. Muluzi, on his return two weeks ago from a private visit to Britain, said he could not be assassinated because he is protected by God.