Zambia’s former spy chief, arrested earlier this week for allegedly stealing a motor bike, was trying to flee the country for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), intelligence sources said on Saturday.
Xavier Chungu was arrested in the northern Zambian town of Mansa on Thursday. But Zambian intelligence officers, who declined to be named, said he was planning to escape in a light aircraft.
Chungu, who has been arrested four times in three months over various criminal offences, is being kept in police cells in Lusaka, the sources said on Saturday.
They added that the South African-registered plane had been impounded in the northern Zambian town of Kawambwa, close to the DRC border, and would be flown to Lusaka on Saturday.
They claimed Chungu had planned his getaway from Kawambwa, but those plans were thwarted following his arrest for theft.
Chungu, who has been accused of high-level corruption and abuse of office, has also been accused by the UN of peddling arms to former UNITA rebels in Angola, while serving as Zambia’s intelligence chief.
A former associate of embattled ex-president Frederick Chiluba, Chungu has been one of several influential figures charged with the theft of motor vehicles in the government’s much-vaunted anti-corruption drive.
Chiluba himself has been accused of stealing millions of dollars from state coffers during his term in office. – Sapa-AFP