Malawi Police arrested Bishop Medran Chirwa of the Fountain of Victory Church based in Lilongwe, in connection with the death of Tathokoza Salimu, a former employee of the FDH Bank at Dzaleka branch.
Salimu was found dead inside her motor vehicle on September 21 this year, at Chinkhota village near Tatolonga Bridge along Dzaleka–Dowa Boma road.
A postmortem revealed that the death of the banker was due to a penetrating neck injury with perforation C2-C3 spine, consistent with gunshot wounds.
Dowa Police Station spokesperson, Alice Sitima said the call log shows that on the day of the incident, Chirwa, aged 41, was together with the deceased, but later he fled to Karonga district.
Bishop Chirwa, who comes from Kachaka village in the area of Traditional Authority Wasambo in Karonga district, appeared in court to answer a murder charge.
Meanwhile, Fountain of Victory Challenges Police Claims in Tathokoza Salimu Murder
The leadership of Fountain of Victory International Church (FOVIC) has officially broken its silence following the arrest of Bishop Medran Chirwa, strongly defending the cleric and dismissing claims that he went into hiding following the murder of FDH Forex Bureau employee Tathokoza Salimu.
In an official statement signed by Apostle Joseph Ziba, President and Founder of FOVIC, the church extended its deepest condolences to the Salimu family while maintaining that human life is sacred and anyone responsible for the murder must face the full force of the law.
However, Apostle Ziba addressed public reports alleging that Bishop Chirwa fled to Karonga to evade law enforcement, clarifying that the Bishop had accompanied him on an official apostolic tour of the Northern Region, an itinerary documented on the ministry’s official social media channels.
The church further revealed that Bishop Chirwa was back in Lilongwe on Sunday, September 27, 2026, leading Sunday services at his station, and had remained in the city ever since until his arrest at National Police Headquarters on October 6, 2026. Reiterating the Bishop’s alibi, the church revealed that Bishop Chirwa informed investigators he was in Mbwatalika on the outskirts of Lilongwe searching to purchase land at the time of the alleged murder.
According to the statement, police accompanied the Bishop to Mbwatalika where three individuals engaged to assist him confirmed being in his company during that period.
Furthermore, FOVIC stated that a thorough police search conducted at the Bishop’s residence yielded neither the murder weapon nor any personal effects belonging to the deceased.
Addressing what the police are tying directly to the suspect, law enforcement officials led by Dowa Police PRO Alice Sitima have pointed to preliminary call log and mobile network tower analyses showing that the Bishop and the deceased were together on the evening of the murder.
Investigators maintain that Bishop Chirwa was the last person to interact with Tathokoza before her body was discovered slumped in her vehicle on September 21, 2026, at Chinkhota Village near Tatolonga Bridge, bearing a fatal gunshot wound to the neck.
Police also noted that the suspect changed his phone numbers and devices following the incident before being tracked down.
However, while the church maintains that the Bishop was in Mbwatalika during the day, critical observers and investigators point to significant timeline gaps.
Given that Tathokoza’s lifeless body was discovered abandoned inside her vehicle in the evening of that day, critics argue that an alibi covering earlier hours in Mbwatalika does not account for the Bishop’s movements later in the day, leaving open the possibility that he travelled toward Dzaleka that evening.
in 2018, Apostle Joseph Ziba, founder and president of Fountain of Victory International Ministries, and businessman Tayub Aziz were arrested over an alleged duty evasion scheme of K26 million and cheating the public revenue.
The preacher was arrested for allegedly refusing to pay the duty and a fine levied on his multi-million kwancha posh Range Rover
