Shebby Chilekwa, the barber for former president Edgar Lungu, has appealed against his conviction and sentencing of 25 years in prison with hard labor for the 2019 murder of a supporter of the United Party for National Development (UPND).
It’s thought that Chilekwa, who was convicted yesterday after the prosecution proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, killed Lawrence Banda in the Kaoma district in 2019.
The specifics of the case were that Chilekwa was accused of killing Lawrence Banda on October 6, 2019, at Kaoma.
Judge Mr. Justice Charles Zulu sentenced Chilekwa to 25 years in prison with hard labor today at the Mongu High Court.
Chilekwa, however, has appealed against the conviction and sentence, laying out the reasons why the High Court erred in both law and fact in a notice of appeal.
“I desire to appeal to the Court of Appeal against Conviction and Sentence on the following grounds.
The trial court erred in law and fact when it convicted me against the totality of the weight of evidence on record,” he said.
Chilekwa added that the trial court erred in law and fact when it found him guilty of murder despite no one having been able to identify the deceased’s body.
Additionally, he argued that the testimony of the prosecution witnesses under cross questioning, which was favorable to him, was not taken into account by the court.
“The trial Court erred in law and fact when he relied on the unsubstantiated evidence of a shooting in Lusaka and the trial court erred both in law and fact when he held that the evidence of prosecution witness number two, prosecution witness number three and prosecution witness number five were reliable and consistent,” he said.
