Amadi Phiri V The People (Appeal 38 of 2018) 2018 ZMCA 353 (20 November 2018)
Amadi Phiri V The People (Appeal 38 of 2018) 2018 ZMCA 353 (20 November 2018)
Amadi Phiri V The People (Appeal 38 of 2018) 2018 ZMCA 353 (20 November 2018)
38/2018
HOLDEN AT LUSAKA
(Criminal Jurisdiction)
BETWEEN:
AND
For the Appellant : Ms. E.I. Banda, Senior Legal Aid Counsel-Legal Aid Board
For the Respondent : Mr. P. Mutale, Deputy Chief State Advocate- National
Prosecution Authority
JUDGMENT
Banda, was gruesomely stabbed by her husband, the Appellant herein. Her
his defenseless wife, with a knife, over and over again and she fell on her baby
who was covered in blood. After the attack, the Appellant put the knife in his
pocket and entered his house. PWl then took the child from underneath lhe
mother and ran to call for help whereupon the deceased was taken to hospital
After being discharged, the deceased couldn't walk and was bedridden
and developed bedsores which became septic. She was taken back to the
hospital where she was diagnosed with septicemia due to the infected bedsores
According to him, his wife was a h~bitua1 adulterer and, on that morning, he
found her in the act in some fields and she ran away. He went home and when
the deceased came he confronted her about the adu ltery, she retorted that she
was at liberty to use her body as she pleased. In that fleeting moment, the
Accused lapsed into an uncontrollable rage and took a knife from his pocket
and stabbed her with it. Realising what had transpired and out of fear, he
bolted.
The lower Court found the Appellant guilty of murder because the chain
of causation was not broken as the bedsores were the result of the deceased
being bedridden due to the stab wounds sustained which resulted in injuries
that confined her to her bed. In his Ruling 1 on sentence, the trial court
accepted that the Appellant had been provoked and applied the principle that a
murderer from the death penalty. However, after considering the brutal
manner in which the deceased was killed, the Court sentenced the Appellant to
The Appellant, displeased with the Judgment of the lower Court, put forward
only one ground of appeal, that the lower Court erred in law and fact because
was a first offender, the Court imposed the maximum sentence of life
imprisonment.
When the appeal was heard, both Counsel relied on their written
contributed to the death of the deceased but contended that after analyzing the
evidence and submissions before it, the trial Court ought to have weighed both
life imprisonment meted out to the Appellant is severe and does not reflect the
Learned Counsel for the Appellant called in aid the case of Solomon
Chilimba v The People 111 in which it was held that unless a case presents
the sentence on the basis that it was severe and ought to come with a sense of
shock and warranted being set aside and in its place a more reasonable
sentence be imposed.
Page 5 of 9
holding in the Solomon Chilimba case and the provisions of Section 201 of
the Penal Code, submitted that the offence of murder does not provide for a
by the sheer brutality with which the Appellant stabbed the deceased. The
State opined that there was no principle of law that protects a first offender
from life imprisonment where the gravity of the offence and the circumstances
We are grateful to Counsel for their submissions and note that this
leniency but we are also cognizant of the fact that the lower Court considered
the circumstances of the case and commented on the brutal manner of the
sentence, which should have been death is reduced to any sentence other than
death. Section 201 (1) (b) of the Penal Code reads as follows;
(a) to death; or
ninety-four.
person belongs.
Whiteson Simusokwe v The People 14) where the Appe llant caught his lover in
the act of intimacy with another man. A fight ensued and the man he found
with his wife ran away and the Appellant turned onto his wife and beat her
with a stick. She later died and he secretly buried her. The Appellant pleaded
the defence of provocation and this is what the Supreme Court had to say;
labour... "
In the cited case the Appellant hit the deceased with a stick but in casu
the Appellant launched a vicious and savage attack with a knife stabbing her
The trial judge was on firm ground when he considered the aggravating
not strike us with a sense of shock and the appeal is consequently dismissed.
c- /
~
..................•.•.................
r ,
F.M. CHISANGA
JUDGE~PRESIDENT