Lusaka - A Zambian court Monday aquitted former Zambian president Fredrick Chiluba on charges of corruption but his co- accused Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu, directors of a Zambian firm Access Financial Services Limited (AFSL), were found guilty.

Chiluba was facing criminal charges of stealing 500,000 dollars from Zambian coffers.

High Court judge Jones Chinyama read out a 445-page ruling and in addition reviewed statements of 35 witnesses in dismissing the case.

He said the prosecution failed to prove suspicions that Chiluba stole government money which eventually ended up in an account managed by AFSL.

"We are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the prosecution failed to prove that the accused stole funds," Chinyama said in the verdict ruling which took six hours to read out.

Afterwards, Chiluba sympathisers cheered wildly and chanted pro- Chiluba slogans as he left the court building.

Chiluba's trial had dragged on for six years due to procedural snags in the judicial process and his ill health.

He assumed power from Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, in 1991 but his ten-year rule was associated with corruption, with many senior high-profile government officials being prosecuted.

Chiluba's wife Regina was convicted on corruption charges in March and sentenced to three and a half years in prison, but she has appealed the ruling.

Chiluba's immunity from prosecution was lifted in 2003 by the man he had personally picked to succeed him as president, Levy Mwanawasa, who died last year in a Paris hospital.

After becoming president in 2001, Mwanawasa - who is lauded as a champion of democracy in Africa - launched a vicious fight to probe corruption in Chiluba's ten-year rule.

In a civil case brought against Chiluba in a high court in London by Zambia's attorney-general in the 2007, the court ordered Chiluba to pay back 85 per cent of the 50 million dollars he allegedly took while in power. (dpa)