An unemployed youth of 10 Miles in Lusaka has been sentenced to six years imprisonment with hard labour for stealing a calf whose offals he was caught red-handed about to eat. This is in a matter Sydney Liyawa, 35, was convicted of stock theft. On August 7 last year, Liyawa stole a cow worth K7,000, property of Mapenzi Muchindu. He denied the charge and the State called several witnesses who testified against him, among them Auditor Chipembele, a mechanic. Mr Chipembele narrated that on August 2 last year, a child approached him to inform him that someone stole a six-month-old female cow.

Mr Chipembele and the child went to the scene and found the missing calf slaughtered and moved from where it was initially grazing from. When asked who the child suspected could have killed the calf, he said Liyawa because he had earlier seen him within the vicinity from which the missing calf was found dead. Liyawa’s flip-flops were also found at the scene.

And when Mr Chipembele queried him over the dead calf, whose offals were removed, Liyawa admitted having slaughtered it but later changed his statement. Liyawa claimed he found the calf already slaughtered when he went to answer a call of nature at the area where the animal’s carcass was found.

But he failed to prove where he defecated from because no human excreta was found on the ground. Evidence further indicates that when people saw Liyawa at the scene with a knife, he fled and was later found at his home preparing to eat nshima with offals. And when the natter came up for judgment before magistrate Nsunge Chanda on Wednesday, Liyawa was convicted of the offence. Magistrate Chanda found that the State proved the case against Liyawa beyond doubt, especially that he failed to explain where he got the offals and what he was doing with a knife at the scene.

“Your defence that you went to answer a call of nature [at the scene] does not stand,” Ms Chanda told Liyawa, who had nothing to say in mitigation. Magistrate Chanda said people who own cattle spend a lot of time and resources to nurture their animals, adding that those who steal livestock need to be punished.