Senior Malawian police officers have delivered starkly conflicting accounts over the condition and handling of former vice-president Saulos Chilima's mobile phones following the devastating June 10, 2024 military plane crash in Nthungwa Forest, Viphya Plantation.
Former Northern Region Deputy Commissioner of Police Glinton Mitayi told the Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee investigating the crash that he personally discovered two phones near Chilima's body, insisting they were in good condition, with no visible cracks, when he handed them over to a Criminal Investigations Department (CID) officer at the scene.
But that account was flatly contradicted by former Malawi Police Scenes of Crime Unit head Gwendoline Umali, who told the committee the phones already had visible cracks by the time they were handed to her team at Raiply in Mzimba.
Umali revealed that when her team arrived at the scene on July 11, 2024, a separate team of CID officers led by Harry Mbewe informed them they had already collected evidence, including a total of seven phones, two of which belonged to Chilima.
She said the items were subsequently handed over to her team and taken to Lilongwe, where evidence bags containing money and phones were passed on to then Crimes Superintendent Loudon Mthinda for safe custody.
Mthinda confirmed that Mbewe had handed the items to Umali and another officer, before the money and phones were eventually passed to him for safekeeping.
He revealed that on June 14, Joshua Valera, a relation of Chilima's, came to inquire about items belonging to the former vice-president, successfully identifying an iPhone, a Samsung phone, K1,894,000 in cash, a jacket, a diary and keys.
According to Mthinda, Valera initially wanted to collect the items but was only permitted to take the phones after Umali specifically requested they first undergo forensic examination.
Criminal Investigation Department director Jessie Nyirongo clarified to the committee that she had suggested to Inspector General Merylene Yolamu that the phones should not undergo forensic examination at all, explaining that because the devices belonged to the vice-president, there was a need to respect his privacy.
Nyirongo said the IG agreed with her proposal, and the phones were eventually released to the bereaved families.
But Nyirongo insisted there had been nothing suspicious about the decision, stressing that forensic examination is normally standard procedure when dealing with items recovered from an accident scene.
The glaring discrepancy over the phones' actual condition was repeatedly raised by committee members throughout the hearing. Umali maintained that Chilima's phones had cracks but were otherwise in reasonable condition, while other phones recovered from the crash scene were far more extensively damaged.
Dowa Kasangazi MP George Kadzipatike, of the Malawi Congress Party, pointedly challenged Umali, noting that her testimony directly contradicted Mitayi's earlier evidence that Chilima's phones were in good shape when he first picked them up. Umali stood firm, insisting the phones handed over to her definitely had cracks.
Nkhata North MP Mackenzie Nkhwazi, of the Democratic Progressive Party, pressed Criminal Investigation Department director Nyirongo directly over whether Mitayi's evidence that the phones had no visible cracks was correct. Nyirongo responded that she had not been present at the scene and therefore could not comment.
When Umali was asked to explain the stark discrepancy, she insisted she could not speak to what Mitayi had personally observed.
"Mitayi's observation remains his observation and my observation is also a different observation," Umali told the committee.
Committee chairperson Walter Nyamilandu also questioned why Nyirongo had claimed the Inspector General provided feedback within a week, when Umali's own report indicated that instructions to release the phones had only come through a full month later.
Nyirongo clarified that she had relayed the information to the Scenes of Crime Unit after a week or more, while the unit itself had given a later date for the phones' eventual collection.
Chilima and eight others tragically died when the military aircraft crashed on June 10, 2024, in a tragedy that continues to generate fresh controversy as the parliamentary inquiry uncovers mounting inconsistencies in the official account of events surrounding the disaster.
