A LOCAL court magistrate has been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour for illegally selling a piece of land in Mungule area which was reserved for construction of judiciary infrastructure.
This is in a case Evans Mwebela, 58, was charged with obtaining money by false pretences.
Between October 14 and December 11, 2021, Mwebela, with intent to defraud, Mwebela got K46, 000 cash from Nathan Malaya, an engineer, by falsely pretending that he has a piece of land for sale.
He denied the allegations but he was later found with a case to answer and placed on his defence
Evidence is that in June 2021, Mr Malaya, in the company of his brother George Sakala, went to Mungule area to look for a piece of land to buy.
The managed to find some land near Mungule where a wome informed them that her husband, Evans Mwebela, was selling land in front of their house.
Mr Malaya contacted Mr Mwebela and met him in the presence of Mr Sakala.
It was later agreed after negations, that Mr Mwebela would sale the land at K46, 000.
Mr Malaya later paid K30, 000 down payment before he settled the whole K46, 000 and started clearing the land in readiness for development.
Evidence is that Mr Mwebela told Mr Malaya not to tell anyone that he bought the land from him and that he (Mr Malaya) was just developing it on behalf of his uncle.
Last Friday, Mr Malaya sent workers to go and carry out works at the same land but surprisingly, officials from Chief Mungule’s palace confronted the workers and ordered them to stop the works.
This was because the land was reserved for court developments and that the person who sold them the land duped them.
When Mr Malaya confronted Mr Mwebela about the development, the accused insisted that the land in question was his.
The matter was later reported to the police and Mr Mwebela was arrested.
In mitigation, the hypertensive Mwebela asked for leniency because he had paid back K30, 000 to the complainant and was next month scheduled to reimburse the remaining K16, 000.
But Lusaka magistrate Jacqueline Gondwe said the behavior of the adjudicator was uncalled for considering that he should be society’s role model.
“You took advantage and decided to deceive an innocent citizen by deciding to sale land that was given to an institution that would benefit the whole community in Mungule Chiefdom,” she said before sentencing him to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour but imposed an absolute discharge.
(Mwebantu, Friday, 28th July, 2023)
