Thursday, March 28, 2024

Article by Larry Mweetwa Suggesting Stoppila Sunzu was used to Smuggle Items for PF is Malicious

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PRESS STATEMENT BY THE SUNZU FAMILY

December 16th, 2021.

An article attributed to a Mr. Larry Mweetwa suggesting I was used to smuggle unknown items for the Patriotic Front has been brought to my attention.

This article comes a few days after I was informed by my family of a raid by the Department of Immigration at my parents’ home in Chililabombwe.

Since the day the news of this raid was made public, a series of false information about my family has been shared.

We have opted not to publicly discuss this matter because we believe the authorities are carrying out their work professionally.

I am, however, compelled to set the record straight to dispel the falsehoods being spread by individuals on a malicious campaign to discredit myself and my family for reasons best known to themselves.

At no time have I had any business dealings with the Patriotic Front, current or past, and linking any of my little investments which are borne out of my hard work as a professional footballer in the last 15 years to politics is extremely disappointing.

I therefore wish to advise that to prevent the continued spread of this false information, we have instructed our lawyers in Europe to commence legal proceedings against Mr. Mweetwa for fabricating false stories to bring my name and that of my family into disrepute. Mr Mweetwa’s statement is full of contradictions. In one line he says I have been enjoying a tax holiday (falsehood) and then states that I have been smuggling goods. How can someone who is on a tax holiday again be a smuggler?

By copy of this statement, Mr. Mweetwa will have 72 hours to withdraw the statement attributed to him or face legal proceedings in the country of his residence.

Further, I wish to confirm that a team of Immigration Officers who I am told was a unit comprising the Anti-Robbery squad forcibly gained access to my parents’ home at 02AM on December 13, 2021.

My father alongside my sister (a minor who is just turning 16), my brother and my cousins were all picked up for interrogation by the law enforcement officers.

We are perturbed that the issue of my father’s nationality should arise today more than 30 years since he relocated to establish himself in Zambia, a country where his wife hailed.

I am also surprised why I am the only Zambian national team player being singled out for having parents of Congolese heritage when from time immemorial, Zambia has fielded many such players.

What has further disturbed me and the family is that the officers picked my father who has not enjoyed good health since we lost our mother three months ago.

These events have broken us as a family. I wish to also state that the story suggesting my father was harboring prohibited Immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo is untrue.

Everyone who travelled from the DRC to send off my mother who passed away on September 10, 2021 returned to their home within a week after burial.

I have also been alerted to an audio recording purporting to be my father giving his side of the story regarding his immigration status. I wish to state that at no time has my father publicly discussed his unfortunate ordeal with the immigration officers.

My appeal to fellow Zambians is to respect my privacy and that of my family as we process this agonizing period.

Despite my family being subjected to this embarrassing and unfair treatment, my brothers and I will forever remain proud of being one of the chosen few Zambians to have brought glory and put a smile on our people through our God given football talent. My detractors have no idea how proud we are with my footballing brothers to be Zambians.

Signed

Stoppila Sunzu
Family Representative

7 COMMENTS

  1. This is very sad. When studying the history of WORLD WAR TWO, I never believed people like Hitler could ever have existed… I thought it was all made up. But now I believe.

  2. Sunzu don’t take that f00Iish boy Larry seriously. When he came to Lusaka he acted humbling and even begged to take pictures with me and other pf members. Today he is acting like a chi-colour-cha-whistle

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  3. Leave our hero alone imwe bangwele. Amajealousy yabula mano mu yaleke. Stop hustling a hardworking young man when all yuou politicians do is steal steal steal.. We see footballers sweating on the pitch and we can see where their money comes from but you politicians spend one month in the office and you have houses which you never had. Leave Sunzu alone

  4. Stophila can’t write that. Thats a PF language and must be either Makebi Zulu or Tutwa Ngulube who wrote that.
    Stophila must be a fooooool to hire those Lusaka hyenas of lawyers over useless incidence. Stophila will fail to pay those cliques and they will grab his ka small house Ba Ester Lungu is renting. What a peace of USELESS article!!
    Are there no government houses you UPND can give to Ba Ester Lungu than renting from that now embattled footballer?

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  5. Good reaction Sunzu, However, you shouldnt have used the first person reference, it should have been a second person reference because everyone knows these thoughts and the eventual writing are from a second person. It could have sounded more authentic if you allowed a second person speak\ write on your behalf as a family. Lastly, you shoundt have said lawyers from Europe, it doent make sense at all, and sounds like a cheap empty threat. Just say we as a family we have instructed lawyers to take further action, period.

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  6. Young man Sunzu, I appeal to you not to be distracted by what nonentities like Larry Mweetwa are saying about your family. Please please concentrate on your career that has made you and your family comfortable here in Zambia. Some people have very short memories. In 2012 at the Africa Cup, you scored the winning goal that gave us the cup that eluded us for so many years. You made Zambia proud.
    Today, a chap can come up and say that your family is not Zambian, my foot!!!!
    I can call this as the work of people who are “envious and jealousy” of your success story. Or is it because ECL is renting one of your mansions?
    Please mwaiche wandi ignore this trash.

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