By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
AMCOR chief executive officer, Gary Wadey has been acquitted on three counts of forgery, uttering a false document and giving false information to a public officer.
Resident Magistrate Prince Mwiinga acquitted Mr Wadey of the charges yesterday because there was no evidence to show that he forged the extract of the extraordinary meeting minutes which resulted in the removal of one of Amcor’s shareholders, Mohammed Patel.
This is in a matter in which Mr Wadey was facing three counts of forgery, uttering a false document and giving false information to a public officer at the Patent and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) to have Mr Patel removed as a director of the security firm.
The incident happened on September 12, 2011 after which the meeting’s minutes that purported to have resolved to have Mr Patel removed as a director were submitted to PACRA and Mr Patel was replaced by Mr Wadey’s wife Jenipher and lawyer Mwelwa Chibesakunda.
Mr Patel had testified before court how Mr Wadey submitted the minutes of the extra ordinary meeting held on September 12, 2011 to PACRA to have Mr Patel removed as a director without his authority.
But Mr Wadey denied the charges leveled against him.
Mr Mwiinga said in his judgment that although it was true that a meeting was not constituted as it did not form a quorum, it could not be said to have been criminal.
He said that there were two shareholders of Amcor namely Mr Wadey and Mr Patel and holding of the meeting by Mr Wadey only could not have been said to have been dully constituted because it did not form a quorum.
He said that there was no evidence before court to show that Mr Wadey was the one who submitted the minutes of the meeting to PACRA as such he could not be held responsible.
Mr Mwiinga said the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Mr Wadey as such he was acquitting him of all the three counts.
He also said that it was true that the two were having difficulties because Mr Patel had misappropriated company money but that did not give Mr Wadey reason to unduly constitute the meeting but although he did that, it was not criminal.