By Aaron Banda, MANA
The Second Grade Magistrate Court in Mchinji on Monday fined four people K3 million each or in default to spend three year jail terms for assaulting Mchinji district hospital workers who they accused of being blood suckers.
The health workers were attacked when they went into the community to collect data on nutrition status for the district.
The convicts identified as Lemani Issa aged 27; Getrude Faisoni 52; Leonard Kaunda 60 and Matolino Mwale 59 were all answering to charges of malicious damage, unlawful wounding and theft.
State Prosecutor, Gerald Ng’oma told the court that on March 24, 2020 the convicts severely injured three health workers, smashed their vehicle and went away with a laptop and phones that they were using for data collection.
Ng’oma bemoaned attacks on innocent people on the pretext of being blood suckers and prayed to the court for a stiffer penalty on the convicts.
“The four deserve a stiffer punishment because the issue of blood sucking has led to loss of lives in some districts of the country. Properties have been stolen and damaged and on top of that a lot of innocent people have been severely injured for being suspected of being blood suckers,” he said.
Second Grade Magistrate, Gavana Chiipanthenga then sentenced the convicts to 18 months imprisonment with hard labor for malicious damage, 12 months for unlawful wounding and 6 months for theft; the charges to run consecutively.
He however gave them an option of K3 million fine for all the charges and suspended the jail sentence for 30 days to give them a chance to raise the money.
Issa hails from Thyolongo village in the area of Traditional Authority (T/A) Mduwa, Faisoni hails from Mponda village while Mwale and Kaunda hail from Matutu village all in T/A Nyoka.
