A drunken police officer in Zambia freed 13 suspects from custody so they may go and have fun the New Year, officers say.
Detective Inspector Titus Phiri was arrested after releasing the suspects from the Leonard Cheelo police station within the capital, Lusaka, earlier than fleeing himself.
The 13 detainees have been charged with crimes together with assault, theft and housebreaking.
They are all on the run in the intervening time and a manhunt has been launched to seek out them.
Police spokeswoman Rae Hamoonga stated Mr Phiri, “in a drunken state, forcibly seized the cell keys” from officer Serah Banda on New Year’s Eve.
“Next, Inspector Phiri opened each the boys’s and ladies’s cells and ordered the suspects to depart, stating that they have been free to cross within the New Year,” he stated.
“Of the 15 suspects in custody, 13 fled. Following the incident, the officer fled the scene.”
Mr Phiri has not but commented on the allegations.
Reacting to the incident, former presidential spokesperson and lawyer Dickson Jere wrote on Facebook: “I nonetheless giggle each time I think about the state of affairs: comical! But then I remembered an identical incident in 1997.”
On New Year’s Eve 1997, the late and controversial High Court choose Kabazo Chanda ordered the discharge of 53 suspects, a few of whom police deemed harmful.
Mr Chanda was irritated that the suspects had been arrested as early as 1992, however had but to look in courtroom.
“Justice delayed, justice denied,” he stated.
