02/05/2025
YOU MISSED IT
A JUDGE has jailed Maurice Chomba, a driver, of Shantumbu for 30 years with hard labour for ra**ng and sodomizing an 83-year-old woman.
Lusaka High Court Judge Susan Wanjelani jailed the youth while chastising him for pouncing on the old woman whom he should have considered as his defenceless grandmother.
To punish the convict, she sentenced him to 30 years imprisonment in both r**e and unnatural offence charges he was facing.
The Lusaka Magistrate’s Court late last year found him guilty of the offences and committed him to the High Court for the sentencing, which Judge Wanjelani rendered earlier this week.
“…Her muscles are damaged and [she] is subjected to [wearing] diapers…she was extensively damaged,” magistrate Mwenya said when she passed judgement on Chomba last year.
The court heard that Banakulu Joe lives in a compound surrounded by her grandchildren’s quarters.
Chomba also used to rent within the same compound where the victim would usually remain alone after her grandchildren go out to watch soccer or have a drink.
In her evidence, the victim sadly narrated that on the material day, an hour before midnight, she was sleeping in her house whose door she locked using a wire.
A stranger then forced her door open by cutting the wire on the door and switched off the lights.
“The stranger came where I was sleeping and started having s*x with me. I sustained some cut. I even fainted [at some point], looking at my age and considering that that person was young.“Anani ononga uja mwamuna[that child hurt me]”.
She added that she sustained bruises on her private parts after the r**e and so**my.
The victim was only saved by her grandson, alias, Chansa, who was at the time heading to his house within the compound from watching a soccer match before he heard her scream for help.
She said Chansa apprehended Chomba and asked what he was doing in the house, but the accused tried to bribe him with K1,
