Agnes Patemba and James Kadadzera, spokespersons of the Judiciary and Police respectively, said in a joint statement that the Malawi Police were approached by the Judiciary to train 60 court marshals into professional security officers.

“The stories are totally untrue and mere propaganda. The truth of the matter is that the MPS was approached by the Judiciary to train their court marshals into professional security officers,’’ the statement said.

The court marshals were trained at Mtakataka Police Training School from September 22 to October 18, 2019, and Justice Sylvester Kalembera of High Court of Malawi was the guest of honour.

“In qualifying Police’s openness and accountability objective, the media covered the opening and closing ceremonies, for example the Daily Times Newspaper of October 22, 2019, captured the closing ceremony with headline “Judiciary security officers urged to be professional”

The statement added: “The MPS and the Malawi Judiciary would like to inform Malawians to disregard the social media stories that party cadets have been trained and have joined the MPS as they are baseless and unfounded.”

Patemba, who is the registrar of the High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal, and Kadadzera, Police senior superintendent, said: “The MPS is apolitical and serves Malawians regardless of political party, ethnic or religious affiliation. All the trained Judiciary security officers are in their respective work stations and interested groups are free to meet them and verify.”