IN WHAT can be described as bizarre, a 59-year-old man of George Township usually insults his neighbour claiming he hears the neighbour’s voice at night calling him a wizard. Albert Kayombo, who spoke through his wife Eunice Mwanza, said he hears voices of different people threatening to kill him. Mwanza told the court that her husband was once a magician and has lost sanity. She was testifying in a matter in which the neighbour, Elias Phiri, sued Kayombo for compensation for insults.

“My husband likes running to the police at midnight claiming there are people who want to kill him in the house. “We have taken him to Chinama on several occasions but the problem is that he does not take his medication,” Mwanza said. She told the court that she has on several occasions gone to Phiri’s house to apologise for her husband’s insults. Mwanza presented a prescription from Chainama Hospital as evidence to the court. “He behaves strangely, especially when he stops taking his medication, at times he hits the gate,” she said. Mwanza said her husband hides underneath a table saying people want to shoot him.

But Phiri told the court that Kayombo only insults him when he is drunk and refuted Mwanza’s statement that her husband is insane. “Kayombo only behaves strange when he is drunk, he has been insulting me for years and I have been ignoring him, now I will not take it,” he said. Phiri said he is scared for his life because Kayombo also threatens to kill him and his family. He also said Kayombo insults other people in the neighbourhood and that last time he did that, he was beaten. Phiri said: “I am appealing to the court to counsel this man because I am tired of his behaviour. I feel embarrassed in the community because he has stripped me naked