Court upholds death penalty for a woman who set lover ablaze

 Barely a month after the death penalty was abolished in Zambia, the Court of Appeal has upheld a death penalty imposed on a woman of Ndola who burnt her former boyfriend with petrol resulting in his death a few days later after he ended their relationship.

However, the court has acquitted Mirriam Chilosha on another charge of arson for which she received a life imprisonment sentence.

According to Zambia daily Mail, Jeremiah Mbawa, a gym instructor, was murdered at Floriana Lodge in Solwezi in December 2019, by being set ablaze with petrol.

Chilosha, who was charged with murder in the first count and arson in the second, was angered after she discovered that Mbawa, her former boyfriend, had engaged another woman.

On Tuesday last week, Justice Minister Mulambo Haimbe when he featured on “let people talk” programme on Phoenix FM, said there is no court of jurisdiction in the country that can pronounce a death penalty on any person following the abolishing of the death penalty.

On December, 23rd last year, President Hakainde Hichilema officially abolished the death penalty after assenting to Penal Code Amendment Bill number 25 of 2022, which repealed all provisions in the penal code act that provided for the mandatory death sentence in the absence of extenuating circumstances.