By SYLVIA MWEETWA-
A THIRTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD Kabwe soldier has been sentenced to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of murdering his wife over a cellular phone text message she had received.
Passing judgment, Ms Justice Elita Mwikisa said as a security personnel, Sydney Mumba, a private in the Zambia Army, should have known that squeezing his wife’s neck could cause death, as evidenced by postmortem results showing that the wife died as a result of suffocation and strangulation.
“Your actions were uncalled for because I would like to believe that in your trainings you are taught how to restrain yourselves if provoked and you should have known better that squeezing her neck was going to result in a loss of life.
“Now once your child grows up, he will learn that you killed her mother and I wonder what type of relationship it will be,” she said.
A packed courtroom witnessed the sentencing as Mumba wept uncontrollably when the verdict was passed.
Mumba murdered his wife, Rachael Banda who was aged 24, in March, this year.
Ms Justice Mwikisa bemoaned increasing cases of gender based violence and that it was saddening that Mumba acted in such a manner to his wife whom he had separated with at the time of the murder.
She said since the offence charged carried a mandatory sentence of death, in her leniency, she had sentenced Mumba to life imprisonment.
