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ICC Set for Fresh Probe on Nsundwe Rape Saga

ICC Commissioner Christopher Tukula ICC Commissioner Christopher Tukula

The Independent Complaints Commission (ICC), an agency that looks into the conduct of the police, is set to start a fresh probe in May on women and girls who were allegedly raped by police officers in some parts of Lilongwe.

This comes after the ICC received funding from the government for various investigations.

ICC Commissioner Christopher Tukula told Zodiak they expect to complete the investigations in three months, and currently they have assembled and trained a team of investigators.

After more than one year of waiting for the fresh probe, Tukula said the investigations have taken time due to a lack of resources and funding from the government. Up to K60 million is required for the task.

“While waiting for funding, we internally started preparations, for example, assembling an investigation team which included female investigators because of the gender sensitive nature of the case and we undertook a form of forensic training,” said Tukula.

Tukula further said considering that it will take at least 30 days for the government to start dispensing money to other departments under the newly-passed budget, they expect to conduct the probe from May 1 through July 31.

Meanwhile, Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) Executive Secretary Habiba Osman says the commission will ensure that the ICC has all the necessary equipment and resources to conduct the much-awaited independent investigations.

“We have been coordinating with ICC and one of the things that we have done is to provide them some technical support by giving them our investigators, including all documentation that we used in our investigation,” she said.

The fresh investigation follows an inconclusive police probe that failed to identify the culprits, among other gaps.

MHRC’s investigation report two years ago established that police officers allegedly raped 13 women, defiled one girl and sexually assaulted three under 18 girls on October 8, 2019 in Msundwe, M’bwatalika and Mpingu

The findings differed from those instituted by the Malawi Police Service which established that no woman was sexually abused.

The police were on an operation in the three areas to pursue suspects that had killed a senior police officer during anti-government protests.

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Last modified on Monday, 03/04/2023

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