The Kasama High Court has sentenced a 29 year old man of Munkonge Village in Chief Munkonge’s Chiefdom in Kasama District to 50 years imprisonment with hard labour for defiling his 12 year old biological daughter.
Before Kasama High Court Judge Bonaventure Mbewe, Moses Mutale was convicted and subsequently committed to the high court for sentencing by the Luwingu District First Class Magistrates’ Court on January 8, 2025.
Facts before the court were that Mutale, on November 7, 2024, had carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 16 years in Luwingu contrary to section 138, subsection 1 of the Penal Code of the Laws of Zambia.
During sentencing, the Lusaka based High Court Judge Bonaventure Mbewe, sitting in Kasama, expressed satisfaction with the lower court’s conviction, emphasising that defilement cases have become prevalent in the country.
In mitigation Mutale’s defence team pleaded with the court to be lenient saying he is remorseful and regrets his actions, adding that the convict is the first offender.
However, Judge Mbewe expressed deep concern, shock and dismay that Mutale defiled his own 12 year old daughter, leaving his wife sleeping.
He emphasized that as a father, Mutale should have provided for his child’s needs and protection, as opposed to exploiting and defiling her.
Judge Mbewe reiterated the need for stringent sentences to be meted out on the convict to deter would-be offenders.
And upon considering all the circumstances of the case, Judge Mbewe sentenced Mutale to 50 years imprisonment with hard labour with effect from the date of his arrest.
Life imprisonment would have been better. If he is released at 79 years old the chap could still cause mischief. Shouldn’t we have kept the death sentence for such characters.
No, death sentence too harsh. Death sentence should be for murder. He made a mistake, he will have learnt from it after his imprisonment. Even the 50 years is too long. Look at Oscar Pistorius, he got only 14 years for murder. As Jesus said, “let whoever has not sinned be the first to cast a stone at this woman”. How many of us have not sinned and are condeming this man for this sin?
Deserving of his crime…
Lock him up and throw the keys away.
It’s time we started to look at these cases critically. What has caused this never seen before frequency? Is it mental problems or is there some kind of force that’s leading parents to commit such heinous crimes. One is the mushrooming of papas who are misleading people that they can make money by sleeping with their relatives. By our customs and traditions a father can not enter his daughters bedroom, not even peeping.
Deja vu , How do you know? Stop speculating that they are instructed to do that by papas. Of course we now have a lot of fake papas, pastors, priests, prophets as well as the many fake politicians with fake promises. But has there been one parent who was caught and confessed that it was papas who told them. Some parents doing this are just plain id1ots who should be caged for life. But I agree it’s worth quizzing the reasons for their animal behaviour
I’m not speculating I’m just suggesting a possibility.
They should add another 30 years to run consecutively until he is no longer able to “rise” to any occasion that would be threatening to victims or up to dysfunctional state, whichever comes first.