Brother jailed for theft of personal effects valued at K21, 000 belonging to Sister.

Kapiri Mposhi Magistrate Courts have sentenced a 28-year-old Livingstone man to one-year imprisonment for breaking into his elder sister’s house and stealing a safe containing K 21,000. Before Magistrate Edward Banda was Peter Chiinda of Highlands compound in Livingstone, who was visiting his sister in Kapiri Mposhi when he committed the offence and was indicted on one count of theft contrary to Section 272 of the Penal Code Chapter 87 of the Laws of Zambia.

Particulars of the offence are that Chiinda, on 2nd March 2022, broke into his sister’s bedroom and stole a safe in it was K 21,000 cash, academic certificates and a Passport the property of Mercy Chiinda, 48, the complainant in this matter from Riverside compound in Kapiri Mposhi.

According to written facts in the matter, on the said day, Mercy Chiinda secured her bedroom and went for work but upon returning home around 18:00 hours discovered that the safe where she keeps money and personal documents had gone missing.

The complainant reported the matter to police having in mind the visiting brother from Livingstone, who had remained home at that time, as a prime suspect.

And upon being interrogated by police Chiinda admitted to having stolen the safe which he later forcibly opened to steal the money from it.

Chiinda further disclosed that he discarded the safe into a shallow well at a home in the Riverside compound but police could not retrieve the safe as the well was too deep.

However, police managed to recover only K 9,400 from Chiinda upon which he was formally charged for the subject offence and arrested.

Chiinda pleaded guilty as charged.

In mitigation, Chiinda asked his sister for forgiveness and the court to exercise maximum leniency on him as he was keeping two young children orphaned by his other sister.

But in passing judgement, Magistrate Banda wondered why Chiinda decided to steal from his sister instead of protecting her from thieves.

“Why would you do that to your sister? You are supposed to protect her instead. And the rest of the money where did you take it? In future, be your sister’s protector because money is so hard to come by nowadays. She had plans to use that money but you have put her in a bad situation now,” Magistrate Banda said.

Magistrate Banda then condemned Chiinda to a one-year imprisonment with hard labour sentence and ordered that the K 9,400 recovered money to be returned to the owner forthwith.