Fri, 17 Mar 2017 07:17:53 +0000
By Philip Chirwa
| THE scene was a thick bush lying between the Lusaka Showgrounds and the University of Zambia Great East Road campus, currently the site of the famous Arcades Shopping Mall and surrounding buildings. |
Nearly everybody who passed by this area that morning could not fail to notice the enthusiasm with which the young council worker applied himself to his job. Whistling and singing merrily, it was obvious that the young man was enjoying every minute of what he was doing – slashing the tall grass in a portion of land allotted to him by his supervisor.
So whap! whap! whap! went the grass-cutter, Emmerson Sililo. Then, all of a sudden, Sililo struck something soft. And before he realised what was happening, a man screamed from the thicket in Bemba: “Yangu mayo, nafwa! (Oh, mother, I am dying.)
A man aged about 35 years, with blood streaming down his clothes from a deep cut at the back of his head, sprang from the thicket and immediately took to his heels. Sililo and his friends gave chase and soon caught up with him.
“Comrade, why are you running away?” asked Sililo. “We need to rush you to the hospital because you are badly hurt. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there was somebody in the tall grass. But what were you doing there anyway? You mean you didn’t hear or see me slashing?”
To everybody’s surprise, the wounded man flatly refused to be taken to the hospital. “Leave me alone,” he cried. “I don’t want to go to the hospital. I know how the wound will be treated, so leave me alone.” He tried to wrestle himself free but failed.
Sililo and his workmates took the man back to the scene where he was accidentally slashed, and what they found there shocked them. They found one big brown suitcase full of assorted clothes, an AK 47 assault rifle , some burglary implements, a mask and two black pots.
Investigations late revealed that the suspect, identified as Edward Khuju, was in a gang of four hooded bandits who had raided a white expatriate’s home in nearby Roma Township shortly after midnight and robbed him, at gun point, of cash and property worth over K4.5 million(old currency).
Through Khuju’s assistance, the police netted two of the remaining three suspects, from whom some of the stolen property was recovered. The fourth suspect managed to escape the police dragnet and to this day, nobody knows where he is. According to the evidence later adduced in the Lusaka High Court, the complainant, Mr Gregory Deadwhite, and his wife were fast asleep in their Roma Township home when, shortly after midnight, he was awakened by someone shining a torch into his eyes while another man pointed a gun to his head.
“Your money or your life,” the man with the torch threatened him. “Show me where the money is or we shall blow your brains out. No tricks, er!”
“Take us to your safe and open it,” it was now the armed man speaking. “Once you give us the money, you and your family will be spared. If not, we shall rape your wife while you watch and then blast you off.|”
Surprisingly, while all this was happening, the wife was still fast asleep. The bandit holding the torch, who appeared to be the leader of the gang, then woke her up and warned her not to make any noise “or you are dead.”
The frightened wife pleaded with her husband to show them where the safe was. After this was done, the family was locked up in a toilet while the two bandits, who were later joined by two others, ransacked the house.
Among items stolen from the house were a cashbox containing over K3 million, two big brown suitcases in which they packed various items , including the two black pots recovered from the showgrounds, a shotgun and a two-speaker Sony radio cassette worth over Kl50,000.
It transpired during the trial that after raiding the house, the bandits shared the property and decided to walk in different directions for fear of being spotted by the anti-robbery squad if they moved as a group.
Khuju, as leader of the group, got the lion’s share of the loot. Since the loot he was carrying was quite heavy, he decided to rest for a while in the thick bush just outside the showgrounds.
According to the warn and caution statement he made to the police and which statement was later admitted in evidence by the trial judge as having been given freely and voluntarily although the accused had contended that he made it under duress –Khuju’s intention was that after resting in the grass for an hour or so, he would then proceed to his home in Kalingalinga.
Unfortunately, the fellow overslept and, to make matters worse, the council had earmarked the same area for clearing that very day in its bid to rid the city of the dreaded mosquitoes.
In his own defence, Khuju alleged that he was a victim of mistaken identity, although he couldn’t explain how he got the deep cut on his head.
Not surprisingly, the High Court judge dismissed the accused’s defence as a “figment of your own imagination.” The prosecution, he said, had proved its case against the accused beyond all reasonable doubt and he convicted all of them for the offence of armed robbery.
“Unfortunately for the accused, this is the type of case where my hands are tied as regards sentence; for there is only one sentence for armed robbery and this is death,” the judge said. “ I therefore sentence you to death and direct that you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May the Lord Almighty have mercy upon your souls.”
The author is a Lusaka-based media consultant who also worked in the Foreign Service as a diplomat in South Africa and Botswana. For comments, sms 0977425827/0967146485 or email:pchirwa2009@yahoo.com.
