/ 30 January 2006

Chiluba petitions AU over corruption charge

Indicted former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba said on Monday that he had petitioned the African Union over the Zambian government’s efforts to pursue him through the London High Court on charges of corruption.

The petition was in a bid to get Zambia to comply with the AU’s resolution that all former African heads of state facing charges over offences allegedly committed during their time in power must be tried in their home countries, a spokesperson said.

”Zambia is a member of the AU and is therefore bound by its decisions and resolution. We want President Levy Mwanawasa to comply,” Chiluba’s spokesperson Emmanuel Mwamba told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Chiluba, in a letter dated January 26 and addressed to AU commission chairperson Alpha Konare and AU chairperson Congo’s Dennis Sassou-Nguesso, said the Zambian government’s actions contravened the spirit the AU was trying to promote.

Chiluba was arrested in 2002 together with several former high-profile officials in his government for allegedly plundering the national economy and theft of public funds amounting to millions of dollars.

He is currently on trial in Lusaka for six counts of corruption and theft of public funds.

Without much progress in the trial against Chiluba, the Zambian government in 2004 sanctioned legal proceedings in London in an effort to recover property allegedly acquired with public funds, and misappropriated funds placed in British banks between 1996 and 2001 — his last five-year term in office. – Sapa-DPA