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ANGLICAN-INFORMATION www . ANGLICAN-INFORMATION-ARCHIVE . org ANGLICAN-INFORMATION reports: Something fishy going on or just plain incompetence? A travesty unfolds in the curious case of Leonard Mondoma. Diocese of Lake Malawi, the cathedral town of Nkhota-kota Hard on the heels of yesterday’s report when we revealed that suspended Nkhota-kota priest the Rev’d Denis Kayamba is to face an ecclesiastical court for disobeying diocesan authorities and distributing false information, comes more tragedy. It was on Kayamba’s word alone that two church members from Nkhota-kota were imprisoned in the hell-hole of the local jail for supposedly ‘poisoning’ the late Canon Rodney Hunter an ex-patriot priest with a long history of service in Africa. Almost nobody in Nkhota-kota believes that Kayamba’s accusations are actually true. Despite the fact that there was no evidence one English newspaper irresponsibly ran the story as fact and copy was circulated all over Malawi – being an English newspaper its story was taken seriously. This episode has left the family of the now late Bernard Mlota very angry as they claim that his imprisonment (as an elderly man) stoked by the reportage led to his own eventual death. The same English journalist who put out the original story later produced online the names of the so-called poisons used. This piece of un-researched journalism backfired as the ‘poisons’ turned out to be harmless medicaments – the journalist subsequent withdrew the list but the damage had been done. The British press need to understand that in Africa when someone dies it is commonplace to attribute the death to poison, witchcraft or some ill-defined malevolent force – this doesn’t mean that they were actually killed. Nevertheless, the fact that Hunter’s described symptoms did not look remotely like poisoning failed to prevent certain parts of press behaving irresponsibly in a way that they would never have dared had Hunter died in the U.K. In the meantime the younger of the two accused by Kayamba, Leonard Mondoma, Canon Hunter’s cook, who was always amongst his most loyal supporters, languished for 18 months in Nkhota-kota prison. This terrible experience very nearly killed him too. Eventually, Mondoma secured bail release thanks to the goodwill of a lawyer who works on cases for Amnesty International. Details of all the above saga can be found on our website. Now the hapless Leonard Mondoma is once again caught up in bewildering circumstances beyond his control. Today 23rd June he has been summoned with less than 12 hours notice to an inter-party hearing in the High Court in the capital Lilongwe to take place at 8am tomorrow, 24th June. This requires Mondoma to travel a distance of about 200 kilometres, a huge journey overnight for a near penniless man. In addition he has no access to legal counsel nor importantly to any of the so-called evidence against him gathered by the Kayamba faction. This evidence (supposed blood samples from the late Hunter analysed in South Africa) has vanished or at least is certainly not available to the defence. Mondoma will be a lonely and frightened figure tomorrow with forces ranged against him which he can hardly comprehend. We may be observing the final outworking of a gross travesty of justice and false accusation. ANGLICAN-INFORMATION will continue to report on the Mondoma case as it unfolds. He has no other voice and we are glad to support him by informing you our many readers worldwide of his situation. We do so in the spirit of our constantly declared aim to be ‘a voice for voiceless’, much, we are pleased to say, to the chagrin of those in authority in the otherwise forgotten Central African Province
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