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LUSAKA Zambia (Xinhua) --
An opposition leader in Zambia on Monday pleaded
not guilty to a charge of criminal trespass.
Nevers Mumba, who
leads a faction of the opposition Movement for Multiparty
Democracy, was arrested on Saturday afternoon for unlawfully
entering the newsroom of the state broadcaster, the Zambia
National Broadcasting Corporation last Thursday and spent the
weekend in police custody.
According to the
police, the opposition leader, who was the country’s
vice-president in late President Levy Mwanawasa’s government, is
alleged to have stormed the public broadcaster’s newsroom and
threatened staff on Thursday evening over a story the
broadcaster run.
Mumba pleaded not
guilty to the charge when he appeared in a magistrate court in
Lusaka, the country’s capital on Monday.
The court has since
granted him bail after state prosecutors objected to the
application by lawyers that he should be granted bail, saying he
was a threat to national security following his comments last
week that the inauguration of President Edgar Lungu will not
take place.
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EARLIER REPORT:
Zambian opposition leader
refuses to recognize president’s re-election
LUSAKA Zambia (Xinhua) --
Zambia’s main opposition leader said Friday his
party does not recognize the re-election of Zambian President
Edgar Lungu in last month’s general elections.
Hakainde Hichilema,
leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND),
insisted that he was the winner of the polls and that the
party’s calculation showed 300,000 votes had been stolen from
him.
The opposition
leader said at a press briefing that the party had decided to
petition the results in court instead of to protest in the
streets, but was saddened by the court’s decision to throw away
the petition without even hearing it.
He then asked the
people of Zambia to take over the fight.
“We have received no
justice. Our election was stolen,” he added.
He also called for
the intervention of the United Nations (UN) and the African
Union (AU) as well as the Southern African Development Community
(SADC).
The ruling Patriotic
Front (PF), however, has said the opposition leader’s refusal to
accept the election result was not a surprise as he had
indicated before the polls that he would not accept defeat.
The country’s
electoral body declared Lungu winner of the polls with 1,860,877
votes while Hichilema got 1,760,347 votes. |
