Chief Resident Magistrate Patrick Chirwa has reserved to Thursday, bail ruling for three people who are answering four charges in relation to the abuse of K6.2 billion Covid-19 funds.

Rashid Mtelera, Dominic Chimaliro and Martin Mainja are being accused of conspiracy to defraud, abuse of office, floating procurement methods and money laundering.

All the alleged offenses are in accordance with a Covid-19 disinfection exercise which a company owned by Mainja carried out at Capital Hill and Kamuzu Palace.

The exercise amounted to about K97 million but it would have costed K1.5 million if carried out by Lilongwe District Health Office.

The State through prosecutor Levison Mangani asked the court to consider further remand of the accused persons as police continues with their investigations.

“There is a lot that has been said on the social media, people have literally already crucified him (Mainja) and courts do not operate in a vacuum because they are manned by people.

“Our request was basically to say that the court should distance itself from this drama that has been created and all this dust that has been whipped up, it’s very important for the court to be impartial a bit,” said Khumbo Soko, one of the defense lawyers.

However, one of the defence lawyers Powell Nkhutabasa argued that the accused should not be remanded but granted bail.

Nkhutabasa argued that the State has not come forth with concrete reasons as to how the accused will jeopardise investigations by the police.

The matter has since been adjourned to Thursday afternoon.