. Mukata

By DELPHINE ZULU –
MURDER suspect and Lusaka lawyer Keith Mukata has asked the High Court to acquit him and his lover, Charmaine Musonda, arguing that the State has lamentably failed to prove the ingredients of murder.
He told the court there was complete failure by the prosecution to discharge the burden of proof placed on it during the on-going trial.
“It is our humble submission from the onset that there are numerous uncontroverted doubts in the evidence presented before court that gave somebody the use of credence to the innocence of the accused.
The duo observed that the entire evidence adduced during trial by the prosecution in trying to prove the murder charge showed that the prosecution failed to discharge their burden of proof and there was nothing to show that the accused acted individually or together to murder the deceased.
“It was also a fact that the prosecution did not lead direct evidence to prove the offence alleged as they relied on circumstantial evidence to try and connect the accused persons to the murder,” they argued.
In the final submission towards judgment the Chilanga United Party for National Development (UPND) Member of Parliament and his co-accused argued that the evidence produced by the prosecution was discredited.
Mukata and Musonda are alleged to have shot dead Kalilakwenda, 63, who was an employee of Men in Black Security Company and was  on the material day  on duty but  the offices of AKM Legal Practitioners, the law firm where Mukata is a partner.
They submitted that in the absence of any evidence to show that the accused persons herein committed the crime as alleged, there was no other option than to acquit them,” they submitted.
Defence lawyers Milner Katolo and Willies Muhanga said Mukata’s gun could not have been used to inflict the wounds found on the deceased, and his subsequent death.
The duo said while it was regrettable that a life was lost the rightful persons that committed the murder ought to suffer the consequences saying the killers were still free.
The accused also submitted that it was trite law that circumstantial evidence was always suspect evidence, which the court should handle with great caution.
The accused also submitted that the officers knew the pathologist’s report, the type of burns on the wound, but decided to undertake their own body examinations at the expense of breaking the law.
This brought further lingering doubts to sizes of the wound because they were using their own size to connect Mukata’s firearm and that no evidence was brought to show that Musonda pulled a firearm leading to the death of the deceased.