By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
THE Supreme Court has upheld a 40-year-jail term slapped on a man who defiled a baby aged about two years.
The Supreme Court upheld Leonard Kabamba’s conviction and sentence for the charge of defiling a 28-year-old.
The girl was playing with two other children who were younger than her at Kabamba’ s house who had been a neighbour to the parents of the girl for 25 years.
On the day of the incident, the mother called the child to go and bathe her and she was seeing coming out of Kabamba’s home.
The child cried when she bathed her but after that she went to play again until around 17:00 hours.
When the child was being bathed again she cried out in pain while mentioning Kabamba’s name.
Medical examinations confirmed the child had been defiled.
Kabamba was subsequently arrested and later convicted by the lower court.
In his appeal, Kabamba argued that the trial court erred in law and fact in convicting him in the absence of corroborative evidence .
But Supreme Court Judges Elizabeth Muyovwe, Evans Hamaundu and Jones Chinyama said they were satisfied that the danger of false infliction was excluded in the case.
The Supreme Court said the lower court was satisfied that it was Kabamba who defiled the child looking at the circumstances of the case.
“We hold the view that our finding would have been different had the magistrate not satisfied himself that it was the appellant who defiled the child,” Ms Justice Muyovwe.
She said that the court has upheld the 40-year-jail term with hard labour slapped on Kabamba.