INMATES FUME OVER PROSECUTORS STRIKE PROLONGING THEIR STAY IN CUSTODY

By CHARLES MUSONDA INCARCERATED accused persons, who are awaiting their fate in the subordinate courts, yesterday fumed at public prosecutors’ strike which has entered the second day and prolonged the inmates’ stay in custody. The public prosecutors who were transferred from the Zambia Police Service to the National Prosecutions Authority (NPA) in 2016 have gone on a countrywide indefinite strike seeking answers regarding who should pay them their benefits for the period they served under the police before they were taken to NPA. They decided to down tools on Monday morning after learning that their former colleague late Nsama Nsama Chipyoka’s family was only paid K13, 000 by the NPA as his benefits from 2016 to December 23, 2020 when he was gunned down in a fracas between the police and UPND cadres. The NPA has told the administrator of the late Mr. Nsama’s estate to claim benefits for the rest of the years he served from the police service, which has denied responsibility on grounds that public prosecutors were no longer under the police since 2016 and that the NPA is now responsible for everything to do with their welfare. Majority of the public prosecutors now under NPA were transferred from the police after some of them had already served for more than 20 years in the service. Yesterday some inmates were brought to the Lusaka Magistrates’ Court complex for judgments in their respective criminal cases, hoping to have their fate known but only to be told that no prosecutor was available to call their cases. They complained that they have been in custody since 2018 and were driven from as far as Chongwe district hoping to reunite with their families after the judgments but the strike dealt them a big blow. The accused persons appealed to President Lungu to intervene in the prosecutors’ strike because it has added more misery to their prolonged incarceration over cases that should have ended some time ago. They said the strike has now worsened their plight because of congestion and poor diet in prisons among other challenges. When contacted, Justice Minister Given Lubinda said he had not yet received a briefing from the Director of Public Prosecutions on the prosecutors’ strike as he was in a Patriotic Front Central Committee meeting since yesterday morning.