Zomba senior resident magistrate Hellen Kachala has reserved the bail ruling for commissioner Linda Kunje and her driver Jones Tewesa to Thursday.
Tewesa was arrested on Friday by Blantyre Police after for his reckless acts contrary to Section 246 of the penal code while Kunje, who handed herself to police on Monday after three days of hiding, is answering charges of aiding someone to commit an office.
During the hearing on Tuesday, they both denied the charges against them.
Eastern region prosecution officer Josephine Chigawa asked the court to give her more time as the investigations are still underway.
She said the two were denied bail because they can interfere with state witnesses.
“Their counsel applied for bail but the state objected for both accused persons. There were so many grounds of objecting the bail the first is that the case is still under investigation the other reason is the are answering are serious offences and we noted that Kunje being an influential can easily interfere with our witnesses so they will be denied bail when we are done with our investigations,” said Chigawa.
Lawyer for the accused Chimwemwe Kalua said he do not see any reason to deny his clients the bail.
“Obviously, on our part as defence, will moved the court for bail because in our view bail is a constitutional right which can be curtailed if there are good reasons to why somebody should not go on bail. We argued our case because we do not see why commissioner Kunje should not be granted the bail.
“We do not know the witnesses the state would parade, therefore there is no way that my clients will interfere the witnesses. And looking at the case, it is indeed serious in nature but not worse than others which people have been committing in the country but were still granted bail,” he said.
