Frederick Chiluba, the former president of Zambia whose government became internationally notorious for corruption during his years in office, was today acquitted on charges of stealing about $500,000 from the state.

The trial had dragged on since 2003 because of legal technicalities and the poor health of Mr. Chiluba, who suffers from heart problems.

Chiluba was president of Zambia from 1991 to 2002. The son of a copper miner, he led a grass-roots campaign for democracy that ended the 27-year rule of the nation’s first president, Kenneth D. Kaunda.

Its almost poetic – the man who led a vibrant campaign, a democratic march through Zambia, would later serve as a catalyst for a veil to be lifted, and a nation exposed as merely feigning democracy’s existence.A magistrate in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. Though I find that difficult to contemplate, one must give credit to the powers of the judiciary where credit is due – Mr. Chiluba’s wife, Regina, was convicted on corruption charges earlier this year and sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Anticorruption groups in Zambia and abroad described the acquittal as a serious setback to efforts to halt the theft of public resources by governing elites and,( a point of which I concur) a disappointing example of faltering national prosecutions of graft that stretch from Latin America to Africa and Asia.

“This is part of a pattern we’re seeing around the world, that national jurisdictions are incapable of dealing with grand corruption cases that go to the heart of the political establishment,” said Helen Garlick to the New York Times, (Helen was head of the overseas corruption unit in Britain’s Serious Fraud Office until last year). “We need to think of ways of taking these cases outside national jurisdictions.”

Chiluba still faces a 2007 London civil court judgment that he owes his country $57 million for spending money from a secret intelligence agency account that was found to have been set up mainly to steal government money. He is indeed contesting the ruling.

The judge in that case, Sir Peter Smith, found that Mr. Chiluba spent more than $500,000 in a single Geneva boutique on a lavish array of designer suits, handmade shoes and silk pajamas, despite an annual salary of about $10,000.

The case in which Mr. Chiluba was acquitted today also involved another set of expenditures.

Mr. Chiluba had maintained in unsworn testimony before the Lusaka magistrate, Jones Chinyama, that he had never stolen public money. Instead, he said, funds donated to his political campaigns by corporate interests and other supporters had been deposited in the secret account.

Maxwell Nkole, who heads Zambia’s anticorruption task force, said the magistrate told the prosecution it should have summoned the former intelligence chief, Xavier Chungu, to testify as to whether it was public money Mr. Chiluba spent, or money donated to his campaigns that was co-mingled in the secret account.

Mr. Nkole said the prosecution had not brought Mr. Chungu to the stand in part because it viewed him as an accomplice whose testimony would have only damaged the case. “He was totally unreliable,” Mr. Nkole said.

Mr. Chungu was himself sentenced on Monday to nine months in prison on forgery charges, Mr. Nkole said. In addition, the court in London has found Mr. Chungu liable for the $57 million owed.

Mr. Nkole’s view of the verdict was less pessimistic than those of some other anticorruption advocates. “The very fact that we were able to prosecute a former head of state sets a very important precedent,” he said.

Rueben Lifuka, president of the Zambia chapter of Transparency International, an anticorruption watchdog group, said the prosecution should appeal.

“We thought there was overwhelming evidence that he was involved in corrupt activities,” Mr. Lifuka said.

There very well could have been, and I refute that merely scrutinizing and placing a spotlight on a former leader for crimes very well knowingly committed is proof positive of democracy at work. Although bordering a nation (Zimbabwe) bereft of democratic conscience due to a dictator clutching power, one must not overlook this misnomer by Zambia. Corruption is criminal and punishing those who commit crimes, no matter their connections or history, is a cornerstone of a democracy Zambia clearly needs.