*Two Convicted
Two men have been convicted in Zambia of planning to use witchcraft to kill the president, Hakainde Hichilema.
Leonard Phiri, a village chief, and Jasten Mabulesse Candunde, a Mozambican citizen, were arrested in December after a cleaner reported hearing strange noises. Authorities said they were found to be in possession of a live chameleon and other “assorted charms”, including a red cloth, an unidentified white powder and an animal’s tail.
“The motive of the crime was to kill the head of state,” the magistrate Fine Mayambu said in his ruling at a court in Lusaka. “The convicts were not only enemies of the head of state but all Zambians.”
The prosecution said they had been hired by the brother of the opposition federal lawmaker Emmanuel “Jay Jay” Banda, who is facing trial for robbery, attempted murder and escaping custody.
The conviction, under a British colonial-era law that criminalises so-called witchcraft, comes as Hichilema has faced growing criticism for cracking down on free speech and political opposition.
The men were sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour.
Hichilema is using the courts to suppress his opponents, appointing allies to the election commission and “rewriting constitutional rules” for his own benefit before national elections next year, Sishuwa Sishuwa, a senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University said in a column for the Mail & Guardian, a South African newspaper.
Human Rights Watch said in its 2024 annual global human rights report: “The administration of President Hakainde Hichilema increasingly exhibited tendencies toward authoritarianism … the authorities harassed and intimidated journalists, youth activists and political opposition leaders for expressing dissent or criticism of the government.”
Meanwhile, a furious row is raging over the burial of Hichilema’s predecessor and bitter rival Edgar Lungu, who died in South Africa in June. Lungu’s family have been fighting the repatriation of the body for a state funeral, claiming he (the deceased former president) did not want Hichilema to attend. A South African court is weighing whether to allow the Lungus to appeal against an earlier decision that the body should be sent back to Zambia.
PHOTO CAPTION: President Hichilema.
