A Zambian court has sentenced two men to prison after finding them guilty of attempting to use witchcraft to kill President Hakainde Hichilema. The men, Leonard Phiri from Zambia and Jasten Mabulesse Candunde from Mozambique, were each handed a two-year term under the Witchcraft Act.
The pair were arrested in December last year while in possession of charms, including a live chameleon, which prosecutors said were to be used in a ritual aimed at ending the president’s life.
Delivering judgment, magistrate Fine Mayambu described the men as a threat not only to Hichilema but also to the wider public. “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 said.
This was the first case of its kind in Zambia, drawing widespread attention across the country. Prosecutors told the court that Phiri and Candunde were allegedly hired by a fugitive former MP to carry out the act.
Although the men maintained they were traditional healers, the court rejected their defence and ruled that they had “professed” powers under witchcraft, which is outlawed.
“The two accepted ownership of the charms. Phiri further demonstrated that the chameleon’s tail, once pricked and used in the ritual, would cause death to occur within five days,” Magistrate Mayambu said.
Their lawyer, Agrippa Malando, pleaded for leniency on grounds that they were first-time offenders and requested they be fined instead of jailed. The magistrate, however, declined and imposed custodial sentences.
The court noted that while witchcraft has never been scientifically proven, many Zambians, like communities in other African countries, strongly believe in it.
“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,” Mayambu said.
In addition to the two-year jail term for professing witchcraft, both men received six months for being in possession of charms. Since the sentences will run concurrently, they will serve two years in total, beginning from their arrest in December 2024.
President Hichilema has in the past dismissed witchcraft as superstition and has made no comment on the matter.
Legal experts note that Zambia’s Witchcraft Act was passed during colonial rule in 1914 and prosecutions are rare. Lawyer Dickson Jere told the BBC the law has often been used to protect vulnerable groups, particularly elderly women, from mob attacks after being accused of causing deaths through witchcraft.
The issue of witchcraft has also surfaced in debates surrounding the funeral of former president Edgar Lungu.
His body remains in a South African morgue months after his death in June, with his family and the government still in disagreement over his burial site.
While the family wishes to bury him outside Zambia, the state insists on interring him at home. Some people have suggested occult motives behind the government’s stand, a claim that has been strongly denied.
