Malawi court convicts Daily Times journalist over extortion
The Blantyre Magistrates Court on Wednesday afternoon convicted one of the senior reporters at Malawi’s oldest newspaper, The Daily Times, Kandani Ngwira in an extortion case.
Ngwira was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and police officers in 2011 for allegedly extorting money from a Story Workshop senior official.
The court made its judgment three years after the reporter was arrested and released on bail. It is expected to pass its sentence on a later date on whether to fine Ngwira or send him to prison.
Ngwira was arrested at the time when he was working for The Daily Times’ sister paper but now defunct The Weekend Times, a newspaper that the then DPP government tried to ban in November 2010.
It was reported that Ngwira was arrested after an operation from ACB and police over a worker at Story Workshop in Blantyre where the reporter was investigating a sex scandal for the tabloid.
He also was arrested in January 2011 for allegedly sending a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator “threatening messages”.
He was however freed after police investigations traced the messages to a mobile phone belonging to one Harold Kaumphawi.
The messages were alerting the DPP MP, Agnes Penemulungu that her husband -Lilongwe businessman Lucky Penemulungu – had romantic affairs with young girls and, unless the legislator pays an amount of money, he would be scandalised in the weekly scandal sheet.
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