THE Lusaka High Court has granted senior Lusaka commercial lawyer Lewis Mosho access to his accounts which were illegally frozen by the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) as the commission investigated a feud between Mr Mosho and Shoprite Checkers.
Delivering judgement in Lusaka on Wednesday, High Court Judge Christine Phiri quashed DEC commissioner Alita Mbhawe’s decision to seize Mr Mosho’s bank accounts.
Mrs Justice Phiri further ordered the DEC to pay up all the legal costs incurred by Mr Mosho since his company account holding more than K45 billion was frozen.
Lewis Nathan Advocates, as first applicants and Mr Mosho as second applicant, sued the Attorney-General as first respondent and the DEC as second respondent challenging the action of the commission which seized their accounts on December 5 last year and January 30 this year.
The Elite law firm and Mr Mosho’s three bank accounts are held at Barclays Bank and one at Stanbic Bank.
“It is ordered and directed that the DEC commissioner withdraws the seizure notices served on the banks seizing the bank accounts. It is ordered and directed that costs will follow the event in default of agreement to be taxed,” Justice Phiri’s judgement reads.
The judge said she was satisfied that Mr Mosho and his law firm have proved their case sufficiently.
Mrs Justice Phiri noted that Mr Mosho and his law firm, submitted extensively on fact and law, where by the Attorney-General and DEC only argued that they have continued to freeze the accounts because they are investigating them.
She, however, said the State did not attach any exhibit to their affidavit to show that there are criminal proceedings against Mr Mosho and his law firm in respect of the bank accounts.
Mrs Justice Phiri said the Attorney-General and the DEC have not shown which persons have been arrested and charged, in respect of the bank accounts.
She said Mr Mosho and his law firm have shown that the complainants (Shoprite Checkers) have already received their monies and the DEC has not disputed that fact, showing that the applicants are not holding any money for the chain store in the seized accounts.
Mrs Justice Phiri said the DEC cannot only claim to have seized the bank accounts as they are being investigated, when the commission has not satisfied the court that the accounts are holding money generated from questionable activities.
“For the foregoing, I find that the DEC continues to seize these accounts in bad faith, thereby making their actions illegal, unreasonable and procedurally improper,” she said.
Mrs Justice Phiri said the DEC’s actions are illegal and improper, more so, that the person leading the investigations Shubert Sinkala has been sued in the High Court by one of the applicants, but did not declare interest in the matter and he was the person issuing seizure notices on the accounts.
[Daily Mail]
Twasebana. give them their money. They worked for it.
K45 billion. Rich Zambians.
Hardworkers!! For PF this is only possible thru corruption…KK mentality of non entrepreneurial .
I am sure some of the money belongs to their clients.
the change we wanted ! not @ we’re GRZ takuli
attorney general! are we in safe hands?
We are in safe hands since the Judiciary still has some judges who are neutral and can give impartial judgement.
The state loosing a case under MMD was unthinkable!! But today some people are still saying PF this and PF that, we finally have a Zambia that has a fair judiciary unlike those of the RB’s. Well done PF for bringing sanity to our country, people will not see what you are doing until you leave just like they insulted Mwanawasa when he was in office till he left. There is still room for improvement, one step at time. Now start working on reducing cadres in GRZ position, so far so good though.
lewis worked hard for that money. incidentally, he is the only capable lawyer in his field. let him just enjoy his sweat. amajelasi imwe!
This is great news. Shows even mighty Attorney general can not contrieve the law lol.
This is our quest for justice. It’s good to see the government lose some cases which simply means there is no interference from the President or government.
Crazyboy, we are waiting