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Five foreign nationals linked to the gold and United States (US) dollar saga have written to the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) Director General, Nason Banda, demanding their immediate release from Police custody or cause them to appear before court.
On Tuesday, DEC seized a private Jet that was scheduled to leave Zambia at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport carrying about US$5 million cash, weapons and some suspected gold.
Michael Adel Michel Botros, Wahid Refati Fahimi Botros Abelsayel, Yasser Mokhtar Abelghator Elshishtawy, Mounir Shakes Gerges Awad and Mohammed Abdelhak Mohammed Gouda were on August 13, 2023, detained in connection with the saga.
According to a letter dated August 17, 2023, addressed to the DEC DG through their lawyers, Eric Silwamba, Jalasi and Linyama, the five described their continued detention as illegal.
They stated that the warn and caution statement recorded from the five on allegations of Giving False Information to a Public Officer contrary to the provisions of Section 106A of the Penal Code, Chapter 87.Volume 7 of the laws of Zambia were irregular.
“We wish to contend that we have had occassions to review provisions of law and would like to state that the purported warn and caution statements are incompetent and irregular as the same is premised on repealed law as the Penal Code ,Chapter 87, volume 7 of the laws of Zambia ,” the lawyers contended.
They have argued that their detention was illegal and should be released immediately or appear before the High Court.
As at Thursday, the five were detained at Chelston Police Station in Lusaka.
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