High Court Judge Annabel Mtalimanja has set August 2, 2022 date for commencement of hearing of a long-delayed K2.7 billion Malawi Police Service food ration deal case.

The trial involves businessperson Zameer Karim and two senior police officers—Commissioner of Police Innocent Bottoman who is now deceased and senior superintendent Grant Kachingwe—who are being accused of conspiring to use a public office for the advantage of Karim of Pioneer Investments, to arbitrarily obtain K2.7 billion from government.

Making her determination on the proceedings on Tuesday in Lilongwe, Judge Mtalimanja said the State has 14 days to make written submissions of which the defense would respond in 21 days.

The court has also granted an application by the defense for the first accused – Karim to have his passport for purposes of renewal and be surrendered back to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) once renewed.

However, Mtalimanja has denied to vary Karim’s bail conditions especially regarding reporting to ACB offices once fortnightly.

“The case was supposed to come up for trial today, but the ACB has applied to amend the charges, there are quite a number of charges coming up, it’s a comprehensive amendment, when we looked at the amendment we haven’t objected but we need to look at charges to see whether we agree with them,” said Alexius Nampota, Karim’s lawyer.

The accused persons were arrested in December 2018 by they Bureau and they have been on court bail for the past four years.

The Bureau, through one of its lawyers Clement Mwala requested the court that on the amended charge sheet Bottoman’s name should still appear despite being deceased for purposes of recovering what he called crime proceeds.

However, Yoneco Radio understands that in the proposed amended charge sheet, the State has revised the amount downwards from K2.7 billion to K466 million.

The use of public office for one’s advantage charge is contrary to Section 25 b (1) of the Corrupt Practices Act.