Vice-President Saulos Chilima and nine others died in a plane crash in northern Malawi. Chilima was vice-president for 10 years and formed his own party, the United Transformation Movement (UTM).
The president vowed that search operations would continue through the night and said authorities, using telecommunications towers, tracked the last known position of the plane to a 10-kilometer (6-mile) radius in one of the plantations.
During the trial, Judge Talakwanji Mndala described Nkhoma’s actions as inappropriate and found him guilty of the charges.
Vice-President Chilima was arrested in November 2022 under allegations of accepting bribes in exchange for awarding government contracts, charges he has consistently denied.
Last year, hundreds of Malawians traveled to Israel to fill a labor shortage on farms caused by the departure of many workers following the onset of conflict with Hamas in October.
