By YVONNE CHATE –

THE NDOLA High Court has heard how Chief Mwinuna’s son threatened to burn a 19-year-old peasant farmer with petrol for allegedly having killed a 70-year -old woman.
Fanwell Chilukusha of Yunda-yunda Village in chief Mwinuna’s chiefdom allegedly gruesomely murdered Obina Pensulo between October 18 and 26 last year.
Chilukusha told Justice Yvonne Chembe that on October 26 last year after playing football in Chisanga village, he had gone with his friends on a drinking spree at a bar in Mushipashi village.
After the drink up, he went to sleep at his brother in-law’s place where the next morning some neighbourhood police officers raided the house and accused him of having murdered an old lady whom he did not know.
He said he was taken to the chief’s palace, where the chief’s retainer and son beat him and threatened to burn him if he did not confess to his crime.
“After the Chief’s retainer and son beat me up they asked me whether I killed the old lady but I denied this, so they sent somebody to buy petrol so that they burn me but the police came to my rescue,” he said
Chilukusha denied ever knowing Ms Pensulo or where she lived when he was cross examined.
Briliat Kachenjela ,27, Ms Pensulo’s grandson narrated that her grandmother used to stay alone, a distance from his home but later started staying with Chilukusha, who was engaged for piece work.
He said on October 18, Chilukusha told him that Ms Pensulo had left for Mpongwe Boma to visit her daughter.
Mr Kachenjela said, however, that on October 28 when he went to visit his grandmother, he found flies all over the house and the bad smell, led to the discovery of his grandmother’s decomposed body underneath her bed.