A Malawian opposition lawmaker who is also one of the country’s most popular singers was on Thursday sentenced to 21 months of hard labour for faking his educational qualifications.
Chief resident magistrate Luke Mabowoza Gama told a packed courtroom in Zomba, Malawi’s former capital, that he found 35-year-old Lucius Banda guilty of forgery and lying.
”I sentence you … to 21 months’ imprisonment with hard labour with effect from today,” the magistrate said. ”I am satisfied the state proved all elements of the offence.”
Banda, a chart-busting singer popularly known as the ”soldier of the poor”, had denied using a fake school certificate to skip an English proficiency test before contesting the 2004 general elections.
He was also charged with lying about his qualifications to an election official, for which he got a six-month sentence that will run concurrently.
The musician arrived in court with a posse of private security guards. When he was bundled into a police van after the ruling, his fans hurled abuse at the police.
Banda is a lawmaker from the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) of former president Bakili Muluzi, the estranged mentor of the current head of state, Bingu wa Mutharika.
State prosecutors charged Banda shortly after he moved a motion in Parliament last year for the House to adopt impeachment procedures against Mutharika, who has stirred up a hornet’s nest by cracking down on corruption.
Mutharika’s crusade has targeted several leading politicians, including Muluzi who was arrested and released on bail for allegedly siphoning off $12-million of aid between April 1999 and November 2004.
The country’s top prosecutor later dropped the charges and was then sacked by Mutharika.
Brown Mpinganjira, a senior member of Banda’s party, said the singer-cum-MP was ”caught in the crossfire” between Malawi’s current president and his predecessor. — Sapa-AFP