Njoya Tembo's Wife walks to freedom

THE Lusaka High Court has overturned the conviction of Zambia Association of Musicians Njoya Tembo's wife, Brenda who was sentenced to Five years imprisonment for assaulting her 14 year old niece with a cooking stick.

Brenda was accused beating her nice with a cooking stick after she allegedly used a pressing iron she was not allowed to use.

But having being dissatisfied with the conviction, she appealed the sentence to the High Court.

Judge of the High Court Mwila Chitabo upheld and quashed the sentence passed by Magistrate Greenwell Malumani on grounds that there was no legal basis on which such conviction was passed.

“There was reasonable doubt raised and there was no legal basis for conviction. I agree with the appellant that there was no evidence that the injuries were caused by the cooking stick.

“I therefore, uphold and quash conviction and set you free, you can go!” judge Chitabo said.


In his judgement, judge Chitabo found that there was dereliction of duty on the part of the prosecution when they failed to present the cooking stick as the instrument used to injure the child.

He held that the prosecution should have called Njoya T to give his evidence which should have collaborated with the other state witnesses on how the incident happened.


“The state should have called the appellants husband because he intervened. There was dereliction of duty on the part of the state and in my view, the evidence of the appellant’s husband would have would have collaborated on how the incident happened,” Judge Chitabo said.

Judge Chitabo discredited all the five witnesses that testified as there evidence was not collaborated.

He said there were two inferenced to be drawn and in the circumstance the prosecution did not prove its case.