Tuesday, September 16, 2025 - A Zambian court has sentenced two men to two years in prison for attempting to use witchcraft to kill President Hakainde Hichilema.
According to the BBC, Leonard Phiri, a Zambian national, and
Jasten Mabulesse Candunde, a Mozambican, were convicted under Zambia’s
Witchcraft Act after their arrest in December 2024. Police said the men,
believed to be practising witchdoctors, were found in possession of assorted
charms, including a live chameleon.
Delivering judgment, Judge Fine Mayambu said the evidence
proved the men intended to use the charms against the president. “It is my
considered view that the convicts were not only the enemy of the head of state
but were also enemies of all Zambians,” he declared.
The trial, which drew widespread public attention, was the
first in Zambia involving an alleged attempt to use witchcraft against a
sitting president. Authorities said the pair had been hired by a fugitive
former lawmaker to target Hichilema.
Despite claiming to be traditional healers, the court noted
the men admitted ownership of the charms. Phiri reportedly demonstrated that
pricking the tail of the chameleon and using it in a ritual could cause death
within five days.
Their lawyer, Agrippa Malando, pleaded for leniency on the
grounds that they were first-time offenders who could be fined instead of
imprisoned. The court, however, rejected the plea. Judge Mayambu stressed that
the Witchcraft Act, which dates back to 1914, still serves to shield society
from fear and manipulation.
“The question is not whether the accused are wizards or
actually possess supernatural powers. It is whether they represented themselves
as such, and the evidence clearly shows they did,” he ruled.
Both men were sentenced to two years for professing
witchcraft and six months for possessing charms, but the terms will run
concurrently, meaning they will serve two years effective from their December
2024 arrest.
Legal expert Dickson Jere described such prosecutions as
rare, noting that the Witchcraft Act was originally designed to protect
vulnerable groups, particularly elderly women, from mob violence sparked by
accusations of sorcery.
The conviction comes as witchcraft remains a sensitive
subject in Zambia, also featuring in disputes over the burial of former
President Edgar Lungu, who died in South Africa in June. The government has
insisted he be buried in Zambia, against his family’s wishes, a stance
critics allege is tied to occult considerations.
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