Malawi: Court releases journalist unconditionally

Online journalist, Collins Mtika

Mtika who has been given unconditional bail after police prosecutors failed to charge him on any offence on Monday afternoon, told Bizcommunity that he has suffered great injustice on his arrest.

"I was never beaten, but to be incarcerated with over 40 people, some of them very sick looking juveniles, in a room of 1.5 metres by two metres made me feel traumatic," he said.

No case against Mtika

The journalist and over 60 others arrested for various offences, including unlawful assembly, appeared before different courts in Mzuzu and were represented by three lawyers that have been hired by a group of civil society to represent those arrested in connection with the 20 July demonstrations.

Senior resident magistrate Kondwani Banda granted unconditional bail to the journalist because he said the police had no case against the media practitioner.

Lawyer representing the journalist, George Kadzipatike of Jivason & Company said it is a constitutional right for his client to be given bail since he has already spent over 48 hours in custody.

Mtika, who is vice president for the Journalist Union of Malawi (JUMA) and Nyasa Times bureau chief for the north, said the arrest has not done anything to his resolve to stand for the people when discharging his duties.

The police earlier accused Mtika of assaulting a senior police officer whilst on duty during the demonstrations.

"I challenged them to show me the officer they claimed I had beaten and how, when and where I had assaulted the said officer, but they just had no grounds to prove their case," he said.