A LUSAKA High Court Judge has substituted the subordinate court’s sentence imposed on eight civil servants who were convicted for failing to avail four Chinese charged for being in possession of fake ATM cards.

Magistrate Sylvia Munyinya had sentenced the sureties to five months imprisonment and imposed a K20, 000 fine each in default serve six months jail term but the High Court has since substituted the sentence with a one month imprisonment.

Justice Catherine Phiri also ordered that the sureties were not required to pay the recognisance fee forfeited to the state as the term of imprisonment was imposed in default of and not in addition to the failure to secure the accused persons.

In this matter Beatrice Mulenga, Alick Muwana, an office assistant, Kambinga Wachaza a mechanic, Clement Tembo, office assistant, Grace Mwamba, stenographer, Alisha Bwalya, registry clerk, Patrick Tembo, assistant officer and two others were convicted for contempt of court and jailed to five months each after the Chinese whom they had signed bail for vanished.

The eight were also ordered to pay K20, 000 each in an event the accused persons skipped.

The eight had signed bail for Fang Hua ping, 44, a businessman, Yu Fei, 36, businessman, Zhuang Wei, 35, contractor, Luo Tao, an interior designer, all from Kamwala South who are facing six counts of unauthorized access to intercept data and being in possession of property suspected to be proceeds of crime but are allegedly on the run. But Ms Mulenga had asked the High Court to review the ruling of the Subordinate court.

In passing ruling, Justice Phiri said the sentence of six months was excessive and there were no reasons advanced for the court to justify imposing the maximum custodial sentence in the event of a default.

“I will vary the order and substitute it with one month imprisonment in the event of a default since they have already served the one month,” Justice Phiri said.

Justice Phiri said after perusing through the record, it revealed that on February 6, 2019 Mulenga and 7 others appeared before a Magistrate as sureties for four Chinese who had absconded from court.

She said they each explained to the court that they did not know the whereabouts of the accused persons and later the sentence was imposed on them.

“A look at this record clearly shows that there was a bit of confusion in the mind of the Magistrate in dealing with the surety in the event that an accused person absconds,” Justice Phiri said.