Police have received an international arrest
warrant for the son of former Zambian President Rupiah Banda.
CID director Ndegwa Muhoro received a
copy of the request sent to the Interpol headquarters in Lyon France.
Mr Henry Banda is said to have fled to
Kenya after he was accused of corruption.
The Lyon office is expected to publish
the red notice to all the 190 Interpol member countries and also post it in
their website on Wednesday.
That will be the signal for all
affiliate police forces to enforce the warrant.
The young Banda has previously been
named in connection with a multi-billion dollar deal for the sale of assets
belonging to Zambia’s state telecommunications company, Zamtel.
He is known to be a frequent visitor
and at times resides in Nairobi. He has connections with top politicians and
their sons.
Zambian authorities allege that he
flew to Nairobi through South Africa.
However, police said they cannot
conclusively state whether he was in the country, adding that they were
liaising with the Immigration department.
“We are not aware of his whereabouts
in the country but we are liaising with the Immigration department,” said Mr
Muhoro.
Foreign Affairs minister Moses
Wetang’ula, who had just returned from an African Union meeting in Ethiopia,
said his office was yet to receive a formal request from Zambian authorities.
Zambia’s Inspector General of Police,
Dr Martin Malama, said they were trying to extradite Henry from Kenya.
Henry is wanted in connection with
what Dr Malama described as serious cases that could have been committed when
his father was in power.
His name and that of a former
Communications minister have been linked to a Cayman Islands-registered company
that was paid up to US$12.6 million to evaluate the repossessed Zamtel assets
whose value it placed at under US$20 million when the market value in two
years’ time is expected to peak at about US$5 billion.
No comments:
Post a Comment