Court acquits Malawi Prison Warder on assault charges
The Magistrate Court in Rumphi district northern Malawi has acquitted a Prison Wader on assault charges after the State failed to prove that he deliberately injured an inmate on the genitals with his boots.
In January this year Police in Rumphi, arrested 36-year-old Limbani Banda after Nyasa Times had reported that he had kicked the inmate Simeone Theu for no apparent reason. The State also alleged that due to Banda’s kicking, Theu had stared passing urine mixed with blood.
The prosecutors charged Banda with ‘assault occasioning bodily harm’. He pleaded not guilty.
Theu is serving a 1 year and 6 months sentence for theft of a bicycle.
His alleged beating came a month after another Prison Warder Julius Kaonga from the same Prison unlawfully wounded another inmate with a machete on the head.
However, the victim withdrew the charges when the case came for hearing at the Rumphi Magistrate Court after Kaonga allegedly palm oiled him.
However, Banda’s lawyer Christon Ghambi of CHRAM Associates in Mzuzu told the court that Banda had accidentally stepped on Theu’s genitals when he was rushing out of the cell to meet his Boss who had called him.
“Banda was in the cell chatting with some inmates and Theu was asleep at the door. So when his boss called him he tripped on Theu hence the injury,” Ghambi argued in Court.
Two inmates, who were also state witnesses, corroborated Ghambi’s oral submission but also disclosed that Theu had genital infection and had been passing urine mixed with blood.
Rumphi District Hospital Clinical Officer Frank Magagula told the court that Theu had Urinary Tract Infection that caused blood to be mixed with urine.
Ghambi then invoked section 9 (1) of the Penal Code asking the court to acquit his client of charge arguing that a person cannot be criminally responsible for his action done without intention or will or of an event is accidental.
Magistrate Bently Kumwenda agreed with Ghambi and acquitted Banda.
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