Police have said a file on the investigations of businessman Misozi Charles Chanthunya, accused of murdering a pregnant Zimbabwean girlfriend, who was extradited back home from South Africa last week, has been sent to the officie of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to decide the way forward.
Police cautioned Chanthunya on charges of murder and was on Saturday taken by investigators to Lake Malawi resort district Mangochi the alleged crime scene to obtain information.
National Police deputy spokesperson Thomeck Nyaude said the DPP will decide on whether to prosecute Chanthunya and confirm the appropriate charges.
“Police completed investigations and it is now up to the DPP,” said Nyaude.
Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs spokerspersin, Pilirani Masanjala, confirmed that the Police file on Chanthunya has been received and that they have analysed it.
“ Now a committal certificate as to be issued so that Mr Chanthunya should be committed to the High Court for trial,” said Masanjala.
Chanthunya made headlines in September 2010 after the businessman skipped Malawi borders after his 25-year-old Zimbabwean girlfriend Linda Gasa went missing for almost a month.
The second-year Malawi College of Accountancy student was later found entombed in the 34-year-old Blantyre businessman’s private cottage in the southern resort town of Mangochi.
The married Chanthunya reportedly went to the Lake Malawi resort district to discuss with Gasa, his secret lover, about her five-month-old pregnancy. He wanted her to abort but she refused.
That was the last the two were seen together before the Blantyre businessman eluded police to skip the borders and the accountancy student was found entombed in the bathroom, decomposing.
An international man-hunt was launched with false sightings in South Africa, the United States and Cuba.
He was arrested in South Africa in 2010 but the suspect has been fighting extradition but arrived in the country last Thursday afternoon from South Africa after he agreed to face charges in the country.
Before he fled the country, Soche Police in Blantyre invited Chanthunya twice when Gasa’s family reported her disappearance and he was allowed to go on both occasions.
Peter Chikwemba is the CID officer who handled the Chanthunya file when he was first arrested and let scot free. He was later transferred to Karonga.