Apostolic pastor acquitted: Court jails church member over death of his pregnant wife
A member of the Seventh Day Apostolic Church in Blantyre (Ndirande Majiga) has been convicted and sentenced to twenty four months imprisonment with hard labour for a charge of negligent act causing harm which contravenes section 247 of the Penal Code.
The accused Saddock Jemitala Kankhuni of Zuze village traditional authority Njolomole in Ntcheu was arrested together with two members of the Church following the death of his pregnant wife on 30th August, 2018.
The deceased Bombisi Lackson 30, according to her uncle who reported the incident to Police, developed a pregnancy related sickness on August 27 while she was seven months pregnant.
Instead of taking her to hospital for medication, the accused and members of the church locked her up in her house.
The members of the church prevented any of her relatives who were not members of this church from coming to cheer the patient saying they were praying for her healing.
As fate had it, the woman died three days later amid prayer sessions.
Matter was reported to Police. The Police rushed to the scene and took the body to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.
Postmortem examination on the body certified that the woman died due to “Ruptured Cerebral Arteries due to Acute Hypertension”*
The medical report also indicated that the woman’s life could have been saved if she was taken to the hospital in time.
Police investigations led to the arrest of the husband, the pastor (Jeremiah Levison) and church elder (Hosea Mikeasi).
Appearing before the Blantyre Senior Resident Magistrate Court, the three pleaded not guilty to the charge.
During trial, his worship Martin Chipofya acquitted the pastor and church elder respectively of negligent act causing harm.
Chipofya said the two were not directly responsible to take the deceased to hospital. He said this was the responsibility of the husband to refer his wife for medical attention when he noticed of her illness.
Senior Resident Magistrate Chipofya then convicted and sentenced the accused to twenty four months imprisonment with hard labour saying this should serve as a warning to would be offenders.
The deceased hailed from Chimdikiti village traditional authority Kalembo in Balaka.
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24 months yachepa koma 60 months for all the three.
That’s why I doubt these small churches in Malawi, they behave as if they are political parties. How can a small country like Malawi have more than 50 registered parties. You mean all already established parties have bad agenda for Malawi????? Why cant they join one which is already established and has similar ideologies to theirs. The answer is simple – greed and selfishness. Do Anglican, Roman Catholic, CCAP, SDA, Assemblies of God/Living Waters pray for Satan????? I don’t trust these small gatherings where you find 10 to 15 people praying in classes on Sundays in the name of ministries which later are called Churches. These are results of zikhulupiriro za bodza which has no place in the kingdom of God. That’s why Malawi will never develop coz we are a doomed nation as we don’t differenciate between GOOD and BAD. Kuwombera mfiti mmanja basi.
I can’t agree more with you Grace.
Sad
I personally know this family infact they were my neighbours some time back. The husband had a good job with a perk enough to take care of the family.
But then he met some friends, I suspect those friends were these pastors who convinced the husband to leave his job and join the apostolics faith of which one of the conditions is NOT TO WORK. People including his and the wife’s relatives pleaded with the dude not to leave his job but he denied and left the job against this advice.
Life has not been easy for the family ever since he left the job. The wife was a good woman I must say but the husband somehow betrayed her love.
Church chonse chimayenera kumangidwa apapa. The government can not be condoning these kind of believes in our country caz they are a threat to national security in one way or another. We continue to lose hundreds of lives every year due to these kind of negligence, CSOs, Citizens and the GOVt should join hands to sensetize the public against these kind of believes.
Some of these bloody churches need to be banned, za freedom of worship izi ena akuzitengera pa mutu.
The two were supposed to be convicted as well. They are the ones who encouraged the husband. If it was sing’anga who had claimed that he would heal this woman through muti you could have found him guilty. Why not those who lie that they can pray for healing.
The more responsible person was the Church Pastor as the spiritual father of the grouping including the elder. The encourage their members not to seek medical attention in hospitals, rather prayers would heal the malady. They were all supposed to be jailed for the same crime of negligence resulting to loss of life. These protestant churches akuonjedza kwambiri. Malawi must ban some of these unregistered religious groupings. Almost everybody wants to be pastor becuase there is easy money in the ministry from desperate members. We can borrow a leaf from Paul Kagame of Rwanda who closed several churches and mosques to the following: poor sanitation, poor infrastructure, noise in the urban centres among others. We can do the same. Too much noise in the neighbourhoods from drum beating by church almost Saturdays and Sunday, some of the on daily basis. Many people have resorted to miracles for them to do better in life than working very hard. Their spiritual leaders are encouraging them to attend prayers at all cost if they want to get rich. The formula of success does not hold the item called “prayer” in it. (Success=hardworking+determination+ dedication-prayer). Anything outside this is a “sham”. Case closed.