Third witness for the second petitioner Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the on-going historic presidential election case Peter Lackson has claimed that president Peter Mutharika is the beneficiary of alterations made in the May 21 elections.

Lackson made the claim yesterday as the lawyer representing the first respondent in the case Frank Mbeta was cross examine him.

According to Lackson, alterations that were made on some results sheets were done in bad faith, to cover rigging.

Reacting to the claims, Mbeta asked the witness to cite cases where alterations were done to favor Mutharika.

Mbeta also insisted that the witness was not in any place where the alterations were made such that he would not know if the alterations, which included use of correctional fluid TippEx, were done in bad faith.

Lackson insisted that the alterations that were not signed for were not done in good faith. He also said even though he was not on the ground, he saw copies of monitors. He also told the court that the alterations were done at the constituency tally centers.

“I am not against alterations but alterations that are genuine are signed for. Alterations have to be signed for to avoid creating doubts. I had a copy from the monitors which I witnessed.

“I was comparing data from the primary source against the data which has been altered and see if they are the same or not, so if the alterations were genuine, they were supposed to be the same,” Lackson said.

But Mbeta continued to argue that what the witness was saying were mere speculations because he had not been on the ground at the polling centres.

“Remember it is you sitting in your office and doing your analysis. It did not involve you being an eye-witness to any of the processes,” Mbeta told the witness.