By DELPHINE ZULU –
A  CALL boy, Sydney Kasweka of Lusaka’s Kanyama Township has been sentenced to death for killing a bus driver, Nickson Masasa over a K1.
Kasweka, 23, had demanded a K1 from the driver for loading passengers where he operated from but he was not convinced with the explanation that the people he picked were not mere passengers but his relatives.
Kasweka then hit Mr Masasa with a pan brick on his head.
Supreme Court Judge Evans Hamaundu sitting as High Court Judge in delivering judgment on Friday said call boys smoked cannabis and drunk all sorts of beer which made them aggressive.
Mr Justice Hamaundu said there was no evidence to show that the call boy was provoked but actually at first started beating the conductor who ran away before throwing a brick at the driver who lost
control hitting into a building.
The driver was rushed to University Teaching Hospital (UTH) where he died.
“The behavior of call boys should not be tolerated in our society and a message should be sent to them that the court will not tolerate such irresponsibility.
“I do not think that being a call boy provides an extenuating circumstance to kill anyone,” he said.
He said all the witnesses positively identified him as the man who threw the brick at the bus driver.
Even in the warn and caution statement he gave to the police, Kasweka admitted having thrown the brick at the bus driver for telling the conductor not to give him a K1 for loading passengers.
The record showed that the bus driver was taking his relatives to Kanyama clinic but picked them where Kasweka was operating from forcing him to demand for a K1 and in the process he decided to get
two bricks one aimed at the conductor while the other one landed on the driver’s head.