At least 15 Heavily armed paramilitary police and some ZRA officers stormed a flat belonging to Post Newspapers IT Manager Andrew Chiwenda, located in Lusaka’s Rhodes Park area under the pretext of searching for materials suspected of being smuggled.
The officers arrived a few minutes after mid night in the early hours of Tuesday 19th July and immediately surrounded the entire area consisting of three flats and went ahead to start searching the first two flats before forcing their way into Chiwenda’s flat. When he requested for a search warrant, the officers blatantly ignored the plea and went ahead with their search, which however yielded nothing.
“When I asked them the reasons for the search and if they had a search permit, they just said they have powers to undertake a search any time. They said they were looking for contraband material and also had information that there were smuggled things including cars,” said Chiwenda.
He said he was now living in fear together with his family because the whole experience was traumatising. Chiwenda recalled that during the time police officers arrested Post editor in chief and others a few weeks ago, police officers had threatened to go for his life.
“I am now living in fear because last time they said they will shoot me . My whole family is traumatised,” he said.