By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
THREE police officers of Chipata Police Station in Eastern Province have been sentenced to death by hanging after being found guilty of murder by the Lusaka High Court.
Noah Mukuka, Teddy Mwansa and Gilbery Kagoba were yesterday handed the mandatory death sentence by High Court Judge Anessie Banda-Bobo for killing three suspects in 2010.
The trio was found guilty of gunning down Saidi Nyoni, Layford Mvula, and James Phiri with an AK47 assault rifle on the pretext that the suspects wanted to escape from custody.
“I have no choice but to hand down a mandatory sentence. I sentence you to death, to hang by the neck until pronounced dead by a certified medical doctor. May God have mercy on you,” Ms Justice Banda-Bobo said before relatives burst into wailing inside court.
Nyoni, 35, Phiri, 30, and 29-year-old Mvula were suspected to have stolen cattle from a farm before they were bundled into a police vehicle registration number ZP 1775B by the three police officers on September 10, 2010.
The court heard that the deceased were taken by the three officers on the pretext that they were visiting the crime scene.
However, the suspects were shot dead by the three officers along the way.
They sustained several multiple wounds, with their vital organs such as liver, kidney and heart having ruptured before they died.
Mukuka, Mwansa and Kagoba, who held various ranks in the police service claimed that the suspects attempted to run away as they jumped off a moving vehicle.
The three officers surprisingly went to deposit the bodies of the suspects in the Chipata General Hospital mortuary without the consent of their superiors.
They did not indicate in the logging out book that they had carried a loaded gun, police motor vehicle and three suspects for investigations, a move the court noted was aimed at concealing the predetermined crime.
Ms Justice Banda-Bobo said the suspects died in a horrific manner as they were murdered by police officers whose duty was to protect people’s lives before they were charged, tried or convicted.
She said if the officers aimed to disable the suspects as they claimed, they would have shot the three in the lower parts of their bodies and not in the manner they did.
She said contrary to claims by the three police officers that the suspects were under lawful custody, the evidence before the court showed that the trio had not been charged for any offence.
Ms Justice Banda-Bobo said the killing of the suspects was planned with malice and there was no justification by the police officers for their action.