A court in Lilongwe adjourns ivory case to December 13

MALAWI: The Chief Resident Magistrates court in Lilongwe has adjourned the wildlife case involving a Chinese national Bin Liu who is being accused of possessing pieces of ivory worth over K9 million at his residence in Area 47 in Lilongwe.

The case has been adjourned to December 13, 2021 in order for the state to parade five more witnesses before it closes its prosecution.

On Monday this week, the state paraded two witnesses who were soil scientists from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources and a wildlife crimes investigator from the Malawi Police Service (MPS).

One of the soil scientists, Joseph Chimutu, demonstrated in his observation on how and when a sack containing wildlife specimen was buried within the compound of the accused person.

In the sack, investigators recovered 13 pieces of processed ivory and 5 pieces of raw ivory which was kept illegally under the tree at Bin Liu’s residence.

The soil scientist demonstrated that the tree where the sack was buried was planted the same period of time the sack was buried.

One of the officers from Wildlife and Environmental Crimes Investigation Unit, Limbikani Chaswa Banda testified in court as a photographer and he said that during the whole process of investigations of the case, he took 21 photos and two videos as evidence.

During the recent court proceedings, the pictures were displayed through a projector set up in the courtroom and in his explanation, Banda said that what he captured was what happened from the time they visited the crime scene.

Upon being asked by the defense on his observations, Banda was not sure if the compound of the suspect is shared by other people besides the accused person himself.

He further explained that he is also not sure if firearms that were found in the house of the accused are registered.

Therefore the court adjourned the case in a bid for the court to parade its final witnesses for the continuation of the trial.