Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has suspended the country's chief prosecutor and appointed a tribunal to investigate allegations of misconduct against him, a government spokesperson said yesterday.

A stand-off arose between Mwanawasa and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mukelabai Mukelabai after he denied claims by Mwanawasa that he had resigned from his position and went on sabbatical leave.

Mukelabai is to be probed by the tribunal of three high court judges for allegedly conniving with people currently on trial for corruption and theft of public funds.

Mwanawasa said last week he had unconfirmed reports and anonymous letters that Mukelabai had been meeting with the country's former chief of intelligence, Xavier Chungu, who is one of those arrested by the task force on charges of corruption.

Chungu is said to have master-minded the transfer of public funds involving $40-million for former president Frederick Chiluba.

They are both on trial facing over 200 counts of corruption and theft.

But Mukelabai denied the allegations, saying he was appalled by State House's actions to remove him from his position and challenged Mwanawasa to set up a tribunal so that he could defend himself.

Matters came to a head when two private lawyers hired by the state to help prosecute those arrested for corruption and theft, resigned from the task force, citing personal differences with Mukelabai.

This resulted in Mukelabai being sent on a 45-day forced leave.

The two lawyers subsequently agreed to return to the task force.

Since Mwanawasa embarked on his anti-corruption drive, targeted at the former Chiluba regime, the state has never secured any conviction against those arrested.

All the suspects have been set free on grounds of insufficient evidence against them while in other cases the state dropped the charges against them. – Sapa-DPA.