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LUSAKA. – A private plane found with more than $5m (£4m) in cash, fake gold, guns and ammunition on board is at the centre of a deepening investigation in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.
Everyone knows the aircraft flew from the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and landed a fortnight ago in Zambia, but that is where the certainties stop.
So far nobody in Egypt or Zambia admits to chartering the plane or owning its contents.
With so many questions unanswered rumours have been swirling.
Could those involved be high-level Egyptian or Zambian political or military figures? Was this a one-off flight or the first out of hundreds to finally be rumbled?
What is known so far is that five Egyptians aboard the aircraft and six Zambians appeared at a magistrate’s court in Lusaka on Monday.
Both the Egyptians and Zambians have been charged with smuggling and corrupt practices.
The Zambians also face espionage charges. Among the Zambians appearing in court was an official at State House, the official residence and office of the president. None were asked to enter a plea.
The world might have remained oblivious to it all were it not for a journalist whose fact-checking website, Matsda2sh, accused officials in Egypt of involvement in the incident.
Soon after that Egyptian plainclothes security forces raided Karim Asaad’s Cairo home in the dead of night and arrested him.
At first he just disappeared. Nobody knew where or why Asaad had been taken.
Then independent Egyptian journalists published documents over social media purportedly taken from the Zambian police investigation into the cash-filled aircraft.
These reportedly named three Egyptian military officers and a senior police officer among those arrested, backing up Mr Asaad’s allegations.
A barrage of protests on social media, many of them from fellow journalists, led to his release two days later. What exactly he had been arrested for remains another mystery. – BBC.com
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu