Malawian police and members of a corruption-busting unit on Thursday searched the home of former president Bakili Muluzi, who is being investigated for alleged graft, his lawyer said.
”They took a few documents,” Dave Kanyenda, a lawyer for Muluzi, told Agence France Presse outside Muluzi’s mansion in Limbe, a satellite town of commercial capital Blantyre.
Kanyenda said the 14-member team, half of them policemen and the others from the anti-corruption bureau, arrived under heavy police armed escort and searched his house for five hours.
He said Muluzi, who on Monday won a court order restricting the bureau from grilling him over $12-million (€9,5-million) worth of donor funds allegedly channeled into his private bank account between April 1999 and November 2004, was ”very relaxed and very cooperative”.
Kamlepo Kalua, president of a small opposition party, who claimed he was with Muluzi during the search, said the police took away a computer and some documents.
”Muluzi allowed the officers to search anywhere… even his bedroom,” he said.
Gustave Kaliwo, head of the anti-corruption bureau, said this week he was just being ”polite” in not arresting Muluzi as he was a former head of state.
The investigators were however held up by about hour by an irate mob of 200 Muluzi supporters, who stormed the gates of the residence and threatened to rough them up.
Over 30 armed policemen were called in to quell the crowd.
A self-proclaimed businessman, Muluzi has commercial interests in real estate, transport, media and retailing. – AFP
