Chilobwe murders

[1] Between September 1968 and March 1970, a large number of brutal murders occurred at night and in the victims' own homes in the suburbs of Malawi's largest city, Blantyre.

Many of the victims were poor and lived in housing with badly fitting doors and windows or unreliable locks, which offered little resistance to forced entry.

One persistent rumour was that the Government was itself responsible for the murders, and had drained the victims' blood to send to South Africa.

[5] Parliamentary reaction was hostile, and several speakers, including ministers, openly suggested that European judges and the European-style legal system had allowed clearly guilty defendants to escape the punishment they deserved.

[8] Malawi has adopted "an administrative view of law": its courts are regarded as instruments for achieving the goals set forth by officials, as a White Paper of 1965 states: "The function of a judge is not to question or obstruct the policies of the Executive Government, but to ascertain the purpose of these policies by reference to the laws made by Parliament and fairly and impartially to give effect to those purposes in the Courts when required to do so."

The verdict in the Nakulenga case did not achieve the government's objective of finding guilty parties so, in these terms, the European-style legal system had failed to deliver the correct result.

The police produced some evidence, amounting to the finding of items said to have been stolen from some victims at Kawisa's house, and of thumb- or palm-prints "similar" to his at two murder locations.

In his first confession, he implicated Henry Chipembere, an ex-minister, and also a local Malawi Congress Party Chairman, and claimed to be part of a group of 13 killers.

[15] However, even after the review by the National Traditional Court of Appeal and its assertion that Kawisa could not have acted alone, no further action was taken to find any of his possible associates.

The case was, however, reviewed by the National Traditional Court of Appeal, which upheld both conviction and sentence although it also suggested that Kawisa could not have acted alone.

[17] After the end of Kawisa's trial, no attempts were apparently made to track down any associates he might have had, and his execution (whenever it took place) prevented his being questioned further.

Despite Banda's expressed disbelief in Kawisa acting alone, it was probably politically expedient, particularly from the point of view of relations with South Africa that further action was dropped.

[18] It has been suggested that the downfall in 1976 of Albert Muwalo, a cabinet minister who was later executed, and of Focus Gwede, Head of the Police Special Branch, (who was sentenced to death, but reprieved), resulted from their being implicated in the Chilobwe murders.

Informers accused both men of trying to discredit Banda by spreading the politically damaging rumours of Malawi Government involvement in the murders.