Mukata, co-accused fate on murder case set for month end

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 09:50:27 +0000

By CHINTU MALAMBO

KEITH Mukata’s fate and that of his co-accused, Charmaine Musonda, will this month end be decided by the Lusaka High Court in the alleged murder of a security guard.

The Chilanga lawmaker and his co-accused will be in court on February 28th 2018 during which the matter will come up for judgement. Mukata and Musonda are facing one count of murdering Namakambwa Kalilakwenda, a security guard who had been on duty at AKM legal practitioners, the law firm belonging to Mr Mukata on May 6 2017.

It was alleged that Mr Kalilakwenda was shot dead at the said law firm located in Rhodes Park, Alex Masala Road.

During trial, the state claimed that the fact that Mukata was in possession of a firearm at the time, irrefutably shows that he shot at the deceased.

In their final submissions the state said it had proved its case against the first accused person Mukata beyond all reasonable but Musonda having opted to remain silent, it was left to the court to make its findings from facts before court.

The state submitted that although there was no direct evidence connecting both accused persons with the offence, circumstantial evidence directly connects Mukata with the commission of the offence as  there where only three people in the premises and he admitted to have fired three shots.

They indicated that the fact that one of them ended up dead, the only inference to be drawn was that Mukata shot Mr Kalilakwenda.

Meanwhile In their reply to the prosecution’s final submissions,  Mukata and Musonda emphasized that prosecution had not proved their case throughout their evidence adduced in their endeavour to prove the charge of murder and that there was nothing that was put on record to show that the accused acted individually or together in the death of Mr Kalilakwenda.

The accused argued that the prosecution should have conceded that they had no evidence against Musonda (second accused) instead of leaving it to the court to make its findings from the facts before it.

They further argued that if there were any facts against Musonda before court, why then had the prosecution failed to see and highlight them to assistant the court make such findings?  The accused’s claimed that it was clear that prosecution had abandoned their case against her.

It was further argued that there was no were on record where evidence was laid that the firearm which was in Mukata’s possession at the material time was the murder weapon.