‘The president wants to kill me’ – Zambia opposition leader

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

‘The president wants to kill me’ – Zambia opposition leader

7:23 CAT | 12 Apr 2017

Reuters (File photo) / Zambia president, Edgar Lungu

Zambia’s security forces have raided the home of opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema in the capital, Lusaka, forcing him and his family to retreat to a safe room, South Africa’s private Daily Maverick news site quotes him as saying.

Speaking to the Daily Maverick from the safe room, Mr Hichilema added that the security forces had used “some kind of toxic gas” in an attempt to force him and his family out of there:

My wife is asthmatic and my child is asthmatic, they are fainting. Our eyes are swollen from the toxic gas they have been pushing in here. We are injured, my family is injured. My workers around the homestead were tortured the whole night.”

Mr Hichilema accused President Edgar Lungu of trying to kill him:

“This guy, Lungu, he wants to kill me. He’s basically broken into my house and put his men around. The whole night they were harassing my wife and children… They have beaten all my workers. And they are still here. This guy is a dictator, a full-blown dictator. We’ve been saying so, no one in the region has been listening, and this is the consequence of not taking notice.”

Mr Lungu and the security forces have not yet commented on the allegations.

Mr Hichilema lost to Mr Lungu last year in a tightly contested election which was marred by allegations of rigging.

Source: BBC