Former Chilanga Member of Parliament Keith Mukata has asked the Court of Appeal to acquit him of murder on grounds that there was no evidence linking him to the death of his security guard. On February 28 this year, the Lusaka High Court convicted Mukata of killing Namakambwa Kalilakwenda on May 6 last year at his law firm, AKM Legal Practitioners, in Lusaka’s Rhodespark. He later appealed against his conviction arguing that the court erred in law and fact when it found him guilty of the offence.

Mukata, who is being represented by lawyers Mutemwa Mutemwa, Kasumpa Kabalata, Milner Katolo, Keith Mweemba and Wilis Muhanga, told the court that Judge Susan Wanjelani erred when she admitted evidence which was not on record, leading to his conviction.

His lawyers argued that there was no medical confirmation by a post-mortem on whether Mr Kalilakwenda died of a gunshot wound or not.
They contended that the pathologist did not state the cause of Mr Kalilakwenda’s death but only gave evidence on the size of the wound.

Mukata’s lawyers further argued that there was no malice aforethought in the murder case. But Justice Chalwe Mchenga, who led a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, asked the lawyers whether they were contesting that their client fired the gun or not.
In response, the lawyers said Mukata only fired in the air.

The counsels further stated that the number of gunshots which were fired were not analysed by the trial judge as two witnesses and Mukata gave different versions of how many shots were fired.They said the findings of fact were also not supported by any evidence, and that Judge Wanjelani based her finding on speculations. The lawyers further said the judge erred in law and fact when she convicted Mukata purely on circumstantial evidence which had potential to draw more than one inference.

They stated that the judge erred when she dismissed that there were intruders at the crime scene. “My lords and my ladies, we perused through the record of proceeding and found that the judge’s finding that the gun was concealed or hidden in a basket was made in a vacuum and unsupported by evidence of prosecution witness number six,” they submitted.