Lawyers representing former Minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamvekha say they will apply to the court for the release of his passport.

According to one of the lawyers – Kalekeni Kaphale, his client would like to embark on a business travel outside the country.

He said: “We will put in a written application in the coming days so that we then come to court to work on, that is assuming that our office and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) are not able to agree like we did few months ago.

I think that is not a very difficult thing to do, it can be either by agreement or by court application and we will try to agree first before we move the court, agreements have worked before.”

Mwanamvekha was arrested alongside former Reserve Bank of Malawi Governor (RBM) Dalitso Kabambe.

The two are answering counts to do with abuse of office and fraudulent false accounting in relation to cancellation of K108 million Extended Credit Facility (ECF) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The former finance minister was supposed to travel abroad early this month but failed because the passport is still under court’s custody.