Court links Reserve Bank of Malawi officials in K500m Standard Bank robbery
Mzuzu First Grade Magistrate Court says if ‘serious’ investigations were conducted in the Standard Bank Branch robbery, some officers from Reserve Bank of Malawi and others from the Standard Bank would have been arrested of aiding a K500 million heist in Mzuzu.
The Branch was robbed of over K500 million on September 3, 2014 and some people including employees of Standard Bank were arrested in connection with the robbery.
The rest were released and became witnesses leaving out three people, namely, former Standard Bank employee, Charles Moffat, security guard Amos Jere, and interdicted Police officer, Ken Kamwambi, who are answering robbery and theft charges at the court.
The first accused, Moffat finished giving his defence, Mzuzu First Grade Magistrate Cuthbert Phiri said there was a “line” in committing the crime.
“As far as the information that the first accused is giving is concerned, allow me to say that if there were serious investigations in the case, I do believe that other officers would have been arrested either from Reserve Bank of Malawi or Standard Bank as, surely, there was a line.
“Let us, see what will happen as we continue with the case,” Phiri said.
Most of the stolen cash belonged to Reserve Bank of Malawi and had been brought to the branch for keeping hours earlier.
The Magistrate’s remarks came just after State lawyer, Christopher Nambiri reported to the court that he had followed up Moffat’s earlier allegation that some Standard Bank officers, who were initially arrested together with him were receiving “VIP treatment” at Mzuzu Police cell.
Nambiri said he had informed Northern Region Police Commissioner, Peter Chasweka that there was a strong allegation from one of the accused that police was letting a senior officer, Mr Willy Kalua to go to his home early in the morning and come back late in the evening to spend nights in the police cell.
“We have agreed with Mr Chasweka that an investigation will be commenced on the matter, and he has made enquiries about officers who were handling this so that they see the way forward,” he told the court.
In his testimony on Wednesday, Moffat kept on repeating that he felt someone, who had prior knowledge of the Bank’s operations, was involved in the robbery as the robbers were conversant with many banking technicalities.
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