A DOZEN heavily armed riot police on Wednesday searched the home and office of a prominent university of Malawi researcher in Zomba, near the commercial capital of Blantyre. “They literally turned upside down my home and office,” said Wiseman Chijere Chirwa. The professor said he was served with a search warrant and a charge of “conduct likely to cause breach of peace.” “I don’t know what they were looking for nor the motive of the search. It was a whole contingent of policemen including a prosecutor,” he added. Chirwa, the deputy director of the university’s centre for social research and a prominent political scientist, said the police came in two vehicles and left after three hours without taking any documents. Chirwa does research work for donors on the economic, social and political life of the stable but impoverished southern African nation. – AFP