ZAMBIA/FILE: Former President Frederick Chiluba dies aged 68

Record ID: 726273

  • Title: ZAMBIA/FILE: Former President Frederick Chiluba dies aged 68
  • Date: 19th June 2011
  • Summary: LUSAKA, ZAMBIA (FILE - JULY 8, 2001) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UGANDAN PRESIDENT YOWERI MUSEVENI WELCOMED BY ZAMBIAN PRESIDENT FREDERICK CHILUBA TO A SUMMIT OF THE ORGANISATION OF AFRICAN UNITY (OAU) RWANDAN PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME DISEMBARKING FROM PLANE, WELCOMED BY CHILUBA VARIOUS OF THEN BURUNDI PRESIDENT PIERRE BUYOYA AND CHILUBA WALKING ON RED CARPET SE
  • Embargoed: 4th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Zambia
  • Country: Zambia
  • Topics: Obituaries,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAF3FGINOOGS31YQ0ZBDXK1IXB5
  • Story Text: Frederick Chiluba, Zambia's first democratically elected president who fought off corruption charges after standing down, has died aged 68, a spokesperson said on Saturday (June 18).
    The cause of death was not immediately clear. Chiluba suffered from a chronic heart problem and had been hospitalised in the past.
    "His personal physician attended to him and he went into an attack just before midnight, ahh, his doctor tried to do all he could and sadly we lost the president at five minutes after midnight," Chiluba's spokesperson, Emmanue Mwamba, told Reuters at the mourning house in Lusaka.
    A former trade unionist, Chiluba led the copper-rich country for just over a decade after ousting liberation hero Kenneth Kaunda in multi-party elections in 1991.
    Hailed as a democrat for helping dismantle Kaunda's socialist single-party rule of 27 years, Chiluba was later charged with stealing nearly $500,000 of public funds.
    He was acquitted of all charges in 2009, while two business executives accused with him were found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.
    Foreign governments, including the United States, questioned Zambia's commitment to fighting graft after the ruling.
    In 2007 a British judge ordered Chiluba to repay $58 million to compensate for money he was accused of stealing during his decade in office.
    That ruling, hailed as a turning point in Africa's fight against corruption, was made in London, where Zambian officials filed a civil case to try and recover assets owned by Chiluba and his friends in Britain and other European countries.
    A Zambian court later decided that local laws did not allow the enforcement of overseas rulings.
    A popular figure in Zambia, Chiluba remained a close ally of the current president, Rupiah Banda.
    Chiluba had maintained the charges against him stemmed from a political witch hunt.
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