UPND president Hakainde Hichilema has reported Economic and Equity Party leader Chilufya Tayali to police for criminal liable.
Hichilema, who caught officers unawares, arrived at Woodlands Police station at 14:30 hours in the company of his lawyer Jack Mwiimbu.

Officers, who seemed not sure of who was going to take down Hichilema’s statement, met him at the enquiries desk. An inspector at the enquiries instead decided to call the Criminal Investigations Officer (CIO) to take down Hichilema’s statement. A Mr Phiri, who introduced himself as the CIO, came through and was briefed about Hichilema’s visit but he also excused himself and went outside to make a phone call.

Phiri returned 10 minutes later but assigned someone else to record the statement. When the assigned officer was set to record the statement, he was stopped by Phiri and assigned another officer. The second assigned officer instead bolted, forcing Phiri to engage the initial officer. Halfway into the process, Phiri came back and asked Hichilema to have his statement recorded in an office upstairs.

The UPND leader, however, refused saying he had phobia for heights and opted to have it done at the enquiries. Phiri then suggested that Hichilema be interviewed from the Traffic Office.

“I came here to make a report to the police on a matter that I believe constitutes criminal libel involving Chilufya Tayali who has been issuing statements, written statements, he has also released videos claiming that I have been or I am planning to take over the country through illegal means…which is not true,” Hichilema said. “Secondly, that I’m responsible for anything that goes wrong in this country, particularly the unfortunate situation at the University of Zambia where we have lost a young female student in a manner which should have not happened. We should have not lost a life like that, if only the PF had met its obligations in terms of paying allowances in time but Tayali believes that I am the one responsible for that situation as well.”

Later, Hichilema visited the house of mourning for 4th year UNZA student Vespers Simuzhila who died during riots on Thursday night.

The opposition leader was received by family representatives and other mourners in Lusaka’s PHI.