By TAONGA KUMWENDA –

A TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD witch doctor of Serenje has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labour for defiling two minors.
Kabwe High Court judge Dominic Sichinga sentenced Mwiinga Mainza of Chintakwa area after finding him guilty of defilement.
Mainza was charged with the two counts and convicted by the Serenje magistrate’s court on both charges.
The offence was committed in February, 2014, involving the two minors aged 14 and 15 years.
During trial, the two minors testified that Mainza used some charms on them to prevent them from screaming as he defiled them.
The court heard that the two victims had passed by Mainza’s place while coming from school to collect money for a goat that one of them had sold to him.
The 14-year-old girl narrated during trial how Mainza told her to undress so that he could have sex with her, after he had already forced himself on the other victim.
“When we got there we were asked to enter a house and later the witch doctor came in and told us to face the wall of the house and touch it.
“He had a root in his hands which he picked from the same room. He threw it on the roof and it fell down, and at this stage Mainza walked outside,” she said.
Mainza later told one of the girls to enter his bedroom and asked her to count up to 20 and then he undressed her and defiled her.
“After he was done, he told me not to collect my underwear. He then called my friend into the bedroom, I dressed up but he stopped me from wearing my underwear.
“He instructed me to remove my friend’s underwear while threatening that if she touched her underwear she could go mad,” she said.
One of the girls notified her parents about what had transpired and the matter was reported to the police, who then apprehended Mainza.