Journalists Held in Presidential Ghost Report
BLANTYRE (Reuters) - Malawi police detained two journalists and one government official Tuesday over reports saying President Bingu wa Mutharika had left his mansion in the capital because of fears it was haunted.
Mabvuto Banda of the influential daily Nation newspaper, who also works for Reuters, and Raphael Tenthani of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were taken in separately during dawn raids at their Blantyre homes, Nation Editor Alfred Mtonga told Reuters.
Local sources said that Horace Nyaka, an aide to Vice President Cassim Chilumpha, was also arrested in connection with the reports, which police described as falsehoods.
"It is an attempt at intimidation," Mtonga said.
Lawyer Titus Mvalo said police had taken the journalists 400 km north to the capital Lilongwe but had not laid formal charges. They have 48 hours to do so under the law.
"My priority is to get my client Mabvuto out on bail but I do not expect him to be freed before Thursday morning when the police's 48-hour detention window ends," Mvalo told Reuters.
Several dozen journalists marched in Lilongwe Tuesday to demand the journalists' release, witnesses there said.
Malawi newspapers and radio stations carried the story on the ghosts Sunday, quoting a senior presidency official, and newspapers Monday urged Mutharika to focus on priorities such as fighting poverty in the southern African state.
Mutharika, a former economist with the World Bank (news - web sites), reacted angrily to the stories, telling reporters at the weekend that he had not met any ghosts in the palace and was in any case not afraid of them.
The massive presidential State House in Lilongwe had been the focus of an earlier dispute in Mutharika's administration after the 73-year-old president reversed earlier policy and began to use it as his residence -- displacing the country's parliament, which had been borrowing the building.
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