A JAILED WILDLIFE CRIME KINGPIN WANTS FREEDOM FROM THE PRESIDENT

A convicted notorious wildlife smuggler Lin Yun Hua is awaiting a second trial for attempting to bribe a judge during his first trial. While in prison, he broke the law by illegally making business errands outside prison, including staying at his farm. His jailed wife was granted an early prison release which was stopped by a civil society court action. Lin now wants a presidential pardon.

GOLDEN MATONGA and JULIUS MBEŴE 

Lin Yun Hua has tested the limits of the law several times. Before being sentenced to 14 years for the illegal trade of wildlife products including a rhino horn and an additional six years for money laundering, he went on the run when authorities started clamping down on a syndicate he headed. Once caught and put on trial, he –allegedly– attempted to bribe the judge presiding over his case. Back in prison, he walked in and out of prison at will to do business and relax at home, suggesting possible payment of bribes to prison authorities to confer him such special privileges.

The Chinese national unsuccessfully attempted to appeal his conviction. Lin, 51, craves his freedom so much that he has found another way: a presidential pardon.

While Prison Authorities claim they never submitted Lin’s name for pardon, a new Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ) investigation has tracked down how Lin has behind the scenes pushed and negotiated for his release through a team of intermediaries including lawyers and politicians.

The investigation is based on surveillance of Lin and his circle of associates, documents sourced by PIJ, and interviews with people familiar with the attempts to obtain a presidential pardon. Lin’s lawyer, a politician in the ruling Malawi Congress Party, and his associate are at the heart of the attempts. Sources close to the matter suggest that the associates with political connections have demanded bribes from Lin to help the convict purchase a pardon through bribes to be shared in the criminal justice system.

The evidence about whether Lin has accepted, suggested, or paid bribes already for the said pardon or whether his lawyer, whose efforts in obtaining the bribes we can report, is also involved in the alleged bribery is also unavailable.

The investigation has also uncovered a previous plot to release Lin’s wife, Qi Hua Zhang, who also was convicted of wildlife crimes, by cutting her prison sentence during the COVID pandemic. We found that that attempt was stopped by a last-minute injunction obtained by civil society. 

Get the President’s signature 

PIJ has seen evidence of Lin’s representatives engaging with the politicians behind the plot to grant the convict a pardon. While such correspondence confirms the ties between Lin’s representatives and the politicians it does not offer definitive proof that  Lin is working with multiple politicians to get the presidential pardon as several sources confided in PIJ.

One of the politicians involved in the attempts to grant Lin a pardon, a former member of parliament and former cabinet minister has also been seen visiting Lin in prison including at Mzimba prison.  (Lin is currently at Domasi Prison after being transferred from Mzimba Prison). 

According to the sources, the objective of the politician’s visit was to obtain Lin’s signature for pardon documents. PIJ could not independently confirm the purpose of the visit and hence is not naming the politician in question.

But the documents gathered by PIJ, among others, include a letter, dated 7th May 2024, from Lin’s legal representatives, Mbulo Attorneys addressed to the Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ng’oma, requesting a presidential pardon on behalf of the president.  

“Our client has so far demonstrated good behavior during his stay in prison and he is a reformed person. Further, our is not enjoying his best attainable status of physical health,” reads part of Mbulo’s letter addressed to the minister.

Ng’oma did not respond to questions on the matter despite several reminders but Mbulo confirmed the request for Lin’s pardon, saying his client is still waiting for an official response from the Minister.

“I confirm that on 7th May 2024, we wrote the Minister of Homeland Security for pardon consideration to Mr Lin in line with section 111 of the Prison Act as read with the Guidelines for the granting of Pardons to Convicted Persons. The above-cited laws provide a number of factors for pardon consideration, namely good behavior during the stay in Prison which we raised as one of the reasons for the request for pardon consideration,” said Mbulo in a written response. 

Mbulo said he was not aware of any attempts to lobby for the pardon. “Personally, I have no information about lobbying issues but as a Lawyer I am seized of the legal issues against Mr Lin and what the law says if he can be considered,” said Mbulo.

Quizzed on whether President Lazarus Chakwera plans or grant a pardon to Lin, State House Press Secretary Anthony Kasunda refused to respond to the questions and referred PIJ to the Advisory Committee on Grant of Pardons which is headed by Minister of Justice and Constitutional Titus Mvalo.  

“The President doesn't know any prisoners, there is a committee so it's better to check with the committee,” said Kasunda.

He also declined to state whether the president has received any recommendation for Lin to be pardoned or not, insisting the PIJ verify first with the Ministry of Homeland.

According to the Advisory Committee on the Granting of Pardon Act, other members of the committee include the President himself, an unspecified number of ministers of the Government as decided by the President shall consider appropriate to appoint to the Committee; and the Attorney General.

Minister of Justice Mvalo, who is the Chairperson of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Granting Pardons, told PIJ that Lin’s name was not forwarded to his committee. But Mvalo said he was informed, upon inquiries following PIJ’s questions to his office– that Lin was pardoned after meeting conditions for remission of sentence. 

Mvalo said his office never received the letter from Lin’s lawyers, either.

“As I have said above, I did not receive the letter in question and therefore I have no position on what was requested in the letter because I do not know what request was made as I have not seen the letter. What I can say for sure is that the name Yun Hua Lin has never come before the Advisory Committee on the Granting of Pardon which advises the President. That name has never been referred to this committee, so the committee has never considered, discussed, and recommended this prisoner to the President for pardon,” said Mvalo.

He added that his office does not receive names of prisoners to be considered for recommendation to the President for pardon from the Prison Authorities names of prisoners.

“I only chair the committee. The committee never received this name. However, since covid days, what happens in order to decongest our prisons is that apart from the names which the committee recommends to the President for pardon, the committee also recommends a general amnesty by reducing by 6 months of the remaining prison term of every prisoner serving a determinate sentence who was not convicted of a capital offense or violent offense, rape, defilement or grand corruption, and this results in the release of prisoners whose prison term would have ended within the next 6 months but whose names did not come to the committee,” said Mvalo. 

The Minister said he was advised by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that the name Lin Yun Hua found itself on the Release list that way, as a beneficiary of the general amnesty. 

“However, I have been further advised by the DPP that the person was not released because the Wildlife Department obtained an injunction against the release pending judicial review, and that the judicial review has been heard and is now awaiting ruling before his Lordship Justice Kapindu,” said Mvalo.

PIJ believes the Minister was referring to a court case involving Lin’s wife who was the subject of a general amnesty in 2020. PIJ has sourced documents on the court case. PIJ sourced documents showing Justice Minister Mvalo and then-Homeland Security Minister Richard Chimwendo Banda had included Lin’s wife on the list of prisoners to be released after their sentences were halved to reduce congestion in prisons due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attorney General, Thabo Nyirenda, said in a separate interview he did not receive a request concerning Lin.

“I haven't received the request. Share a copy you have,” said Nyirenda.

Section 108 of the Prisons Act, on Remission of sentences on special grounds, reads: “ The Commissioner may recommend to the Minister, who, if he thinks fit, may recommend to the President that remission should be granted to a prisoner by reason of the meritorious conduct or the mental or physical condition of such prisoner.”

PIJ asked Malawi Prisons Services if they had recommended Lin for pardon but the authorities said Lin has not been put on its list of prisoners for consideration.

Reformed? 

On September 28, 2021, Judge Justice Violet Chipao sentenced Lin Yun Hua to three concurrent prison terms, an event that received extensive coverage in both national and international media. Unbeknown to the public, Lin who was convicted for trading in rhino horn, possessing rhino horn, and money laundering, had while on trial attempted to bribe the judge.

The details would emerge years later into his prison sentence when the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) announced in July that Lin would now face corruption charges after, allegedly, offering K50 million to the judicial officer plus offering K30 million to the then Maula Prison officer-in-charge, Aaron Kaunda.

In the meantime, the Bureau is yet to announce the findings of the investigation into possible bribery of Maula Prison officers following the PIJ investigation that showed Lin being granted unusually favorable treatment; frequently leaving the facility to manage his business affairs, spend time at his home, and even go shopping.

His lawyer argues the ACB case should not be used against his client. After all, he argues, no formal charges have been laid against his client.

“I have heard of the fresh allegations against Mr Lin in the social media but section 42 of the Constitution provides that any person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of law. So on these allegations, I can't comment much as we haven't received any report of bad behavior from the Prison authorities who are keeping him. 

In early July of 2023, Lin was transferred from Maula Prison in Lilongwe to Mzimba Prison, thanks to the PIJ investigation. Surveillance footage captured Lin at his Area 9 residence, his farm Teng Fei Farm in Lumbadzi, in shopping malls, and at a garage, wearing his regular clothes and being driven around in his private vehicle. 

But quizzed by PIJ about the investigations into those revelations, Prison spokesperson Steven Meke defended Lin saying he did not break any law while in prison.

“He has never gone outside prison illegally,” said Meke.

Such protestations hardly diminish the negative reputation Lin has attained over the years. 

The Natural Resources Justice Network (NRJN), a civil society network focussing on good governance in the natural resources sector, protested the idea of Lin being considered for a presidential pardon for good behavior.

“I don’t think that he will be pardoned but if at all he can be pardoned then it shows that we are not serious in handling dangerous international criminal offenses and pardoning him it’s more like endorsing the crimes that this person did in Malawi,” said NRJN National Coordinator Kennedy Rashid.

Any such moves, Rashid warned, risks turning the presidential pardon into a reward for serious crime.

 “We shouldn’t abuse the relief that is there using Presidential Pardon to sanction dangerous crimes like wildlife crimes because this is a criminal that’s more like endorsing where others might commit the same crime in the coming future hoping that will be pardoned by incoming Presidents, so I would say that to us a Network we don’t want to be using such relief that is there for others that are serving other sentences to be used on such a dangerous crime,” 

This article was produced by the Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ), an independent centre for investigative journalism. PIJ is committed to professional and ethical journalism.