2 Kitwe Men Get 45yrs For Aggravated Robbery

By NANCY SAIME
TWO Kitwe men have each been sentenced to 45 years imprisonment with hard labour for aggravated robbery.
Ndola High Court Judge Isaac Chali convicted Muhammed Mamado, 29, of Bulangililo and 23-year-old Kalilo Mushibwe of no fixed abode but both businessmen after he found them guilty of stealing a motor vehicle and personal items valued at K25,720.
“On the evidence before me, I am unable to accept the stories of the accused as to how they came in possession of the vehicle,” Judge Chali said.
Particulars of the offence were that the accused on May 14, 2012, jointly and whilst acting together, robbed Samuel Munamba of his Toyota Corolla registration number B889 AOV, a cellphone, US$100 and K210 all valued at K25,720.
During trial, Munamba, a Zimbabwean national, told the court that the night before the incident, he spent a night with a woman whom he had picked from a night club.
In the morning, Munamba realised that he did not have money to give the woman but instead gave her his mobile phone and promised to get it back after giving her cash later in the day.
“We agreed to meet later at a night club in Bulangililo so that I get my phone and give her the money,” he said.
Munamba said he was accompanied by his friend and together they went to Bulangililo but they both didn’t know the location of the club and they asked the accused, whom they met on the way, for help to locate the club.
Munamba said after he met the woman and still in the company of his friend and the two accused, she told him that she had left the phone at home.
“We got her so that I could get my phone and I parked at a certain place near her house to wait for her but she never came back and I asked Mamado to go and look for her,” he said.
Having not found the woman, Munamba said Mamado came back but demanded for money for having sex with the woman, who he claimed was his sister.
Munamba said he told Mamado that he had no money on him and this upset the ‘brother’, who grabbed the keys from him and drove off.
He said after Mamado drove for a distance, he pushed Munamba and his friend out of the car and the two started beating him and his friend before they searched them and got away with their personal belongings.
“I was hit with a bottle on my head and I lost my consciousness. When I woke up, I found my way to the police where I met my friend who had gotten there earlier and I reported the matter,” Munamba said.
In defence, Mamado told the court that Munamba owed him money and had given him the vehicle to use as a taxi so that he could recover the money owed.
He said the vehicle developed a fault in Mufulira and it was parked at the police station, where it was recovered.
But Judge Chali refused to accept the defence saying the vehicle was recovered without the number plate, a sign that the accused wanted to conceal it.
He said the two accused also used violence to get the vehicle as indicated by the medical report.
“You removed the number plate because you did not want it to be recognised, especially that it had a foreign number plate,” Judge Chali said.

Posted by Editor on January 3, 2014. Filed under CRIME. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry