The judiciary in Zambia began this week considering the case of the mysterious plane carrying weapons, bullets, liquid money and fake gold, two weeks after it was seized at Lusaka’s main airport.
Among the arrested are six Egyptians, including a former officer, while speculation indicates that there are attempts to hide the identity of one of the accused because he is a sensitive official.
Below is the sequence of the crash of the seized aircraft.
Plane tuning
On August 13, the plane landed at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, Lusaka, Zambia, and was inspected by the Drug Enforcement Authority.
Nason Panda, Director General of the Zambia Drug Control Authority, told reporters in the capital, Lusaka, that the plane was coming from Cairo to Zambia on flight number Global Express T7-WW and was supposed to return again to Egypt. It was “clearly involved in illegal activity”.
He said that the authorities detained six Egyptians, a Spaniard, a Dutch national, a Latvian citizen, and another from Zambia.
The administration stated that it had found about $5.7 million in the plane coming from Cairo, five pistols, 126 bullets, and 602 pieces of suspected gold weighing about 127 kilograms.
A picture of the seizures published by newspapers in Zambia
But Zambian Mines Minister Paul Kapusui told reporters two days later that laboratory tests of the seized metal ingots showed that despite their shiny appearance, they did not contain gold, but were composed mainly of copper and zinc.
This added to speculation in the Zambia media that some of the suspects may have cheated gold buyers with counterfeit bars.
Judge Davies Chimbwele said those arrested were accused of acts “prejudicial to the safety and interest of the Republic of Zambia”.
And later they deposited the preventive arrest.
Court documents seen by Agence France-Presse indicate that among the suspects is a former Egyptian military man, a businessman, and a Zambian police officer.
Egyptian reaction
After the arrest of the plane coming from Egypt, many question marks and information were raised about it. The Egyptian authorities arrested an independent journalist, on the investigative electronic platform “Mtasedakish”, after he published information that included accusations of officials being involved in smuggling money, weapons and gold, before he was later released.
The platform had intensified the publication of information about the private plane incident, after the Zambian authorities announced the arrest of ten people, including six Egyptians, on board a plane carrying $5.6 million, metal pieces weighing more than 127 kilograms, and weapons.
The platform revealed the names of four of the six Egyptians on board, including a former army officer, a company head, a gold dealer, and a person whose name matches that of a police officer.
For its part, the website of the government newspaper, Al-Ahram, quoted an informed source confirming that “the plane that caused a lot of confusion about its departure from Cairo Airport towards Zambia… is a private plane that had transited inside Cairo Airport earlier… and does not carry Egyptian nationality.”
In court
On Monday, five Egyptians and six Zambians appeared before a court in Zambia over the plane landing.
The Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Authority said 11 suspects, including a senior Zambian police officer, were arrested in the capital and charged with “espionage” for entering a restricted area at Lusaka airport.
A district court in the capital, Lusaka, indicted the men on Monday, but Judge Davis Chipwele adjourned, on Tuesday, a decision on their bail request to the following day after the defense rejected the public prosecutor’s testimony refusing to release them.
And the pioneers of social networking sites transmitted video clips of the defendants, who were trying to hide their faces and keep them away from the cameras.
Mada Masr newspaper stated that the five are Egyptians; They are: Michael Adel Michel Boutros, Yasser Mukhtar Abdel-Ghafour Al-Shishtawi, Walid Refaat Fahmy Boutros Abdel-Sayed, Mohamed Abdel-Haq Mohamed Jouda, and Mounir Shaker Gerges Awad.
newspaper quotes”Mada MasrOn the authority of the defendants’ lawyer, Zambian Martha Mushayb, that the defense team asked the court to obtain a justification for not agreeing to release him on bail, so that the court adjourned the session and postponed its decision to tomorrow, Wednesday, at the request of the prosecution.
Mushayb added that if the suspects are convicted of espionage, they will face prison sentences of no less than 20 years and no more than 30 years.
The Egyptian authorities are coordinating with their Zambian counterparts regarding the investigations with the detained Egyptians, according to the Egyptian Middle East News Agency, which also quoted an informed source, as saying that the concerned authorities are closely following the proper conduct of the investigation procedures with them in accordance with the rules of international law.
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2023-08-30 17:08:25
