BUSINESSMAN yesterday wept in disbelief after the Lusaka Magistrate’s Court acquitted him of theft of K430,000 which was allegedly erroneously credited into his bank account by Finance Bank. Webster Shamuyombwe, 45, had been charged with theft.

It was alleged that between July 17 and 20 in 2015, Shamuyombwe stole K430,000 by withdrawing from his account number 1151742 held at Barclays Bank, money which was erroneously credited to his account.

When the matter came up for judgment yesterday, magistrate Mwaka Mikalile said the prosecution failed to prove the case against Shamuyombwe.
“The evidence on record does not reveal that Finance Bank was the special owner of the money [K430,000] and is the one that lost out because at the end of the day, the refunds were resent in full as instructed [by ZNBS] and reached the intended destination,” magistrate Mikalile said.

Evidence is that Shamuyombwe has a domiciled account at Barclays Bank in which he erroneously received K948,900 from Finance Bank.
Finance Bank was supposed to transfer the K948,900 into a Barclays suspense account following an instruction from the Zambia National Building Society (ZNBS).

The K948,900 was supposed to be posted to Barclays’ uncleared cheques accounts, which happened to have the same bank account number as that of Shamuyombwe. Evidence states that a wrong sort code was applied during the bank transaction, an act which led to the K948,900 erroneously landing into Shamuyombwe’s account. A sort code, which is a six-digit number, identifies the bank and the branch where an account is held.
Evidence states further that Shamuyombwe withdrew K430,000 of the K948,900 and that to date the money has not been paid back.

In his defence, Shamuyombwe said he never thought that the K948,900 was erroneously deposited into his account because he had been expecting money from different clients. He also said had Finance Bank communicated with him and asked him to pay back the alleged stolen money, he would have done so.

There is no evidence suggesting that Shamuyombwe was the mastermind behind crediting of the K948,900 in his account. “Failure by the bank to formally demand a refund of the money withdrawn greatly negates any imputation of dishonesty on the part of the accused,” magistrate Mikalile said before setting Shamuyombwe to liberty. Shamuyombwe wept as he left the courtroom as his wife followed him outside and gave him a hug.