September 2007
Man Detained Indefinitely For Contempt
By Madube Pasi Siyauya
A MAN of Mishishi Camp in Chinsali has been detained indefinitely at Chinsali prison for contempt of court.
The man has spent three months waiting for the Judiciary to allocate a magistrate to handle his case.
In a letter to Kasama Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) Fabian Mate Sibote, said the man does not know when the matter would be heard because the magistrate told him that he would wait for another magistrate to be assigned by the Kasama Prnciple Magistrate.
Sibote said his wife had sued his former girl friend to recover items she got when the two had an affair.
When the matter came up on April 26 2007 the magistrate rescued himself from the matter and said he was close to both parties in the matter so he would not be handling it.
After they left the court, his wife and his former girl friend started quarreling. Sibote said his former girl friend said the case would not go far as he had already talked to the magistrate.
He said he was offended by these sentiments and as a result he hailed insults at the woman before he separated the two who were fighting.
Sibote said in the evening he found a call-out requesting him to report himself to the police station the following afternoon.
Before he went to the police station the following day, he said the same the same evening, he met the public prosecutor sub inspector Phiri who arrested him.
He said he urged with him that the callout indicated that he was to report to the police the following day. The prosecutor told him that he has been directed by the magistrate to arrest him.
The following day, when he appeared in court, the prosecutor adjourned the matter to April 30 so that his wife could also appear in court.
His wife was also arrested and given a police bond.
On April 30 when the matter came up, during trail, Sibote rose up his hand and requested the magistrate to rescue himself from the matter again because he had done so in the first case they had taken to court.
Sibote said the magistrate got upset by his sentiments and told him that he would not even grant him the bail he had requested because he had asked him to rescue himself.
Sibote complained that since then he has been remanded in prison without knowing when another magistrate would be assigned to handle the matter. LRF lawyer Mweetwa Kambobe has since filled in a bail application.