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Charms betray abusive son

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An assortment of charms meant to save a 31-year-old Binga man from being slapped with a jail term failed to live up to their billing after the court sentenced him to a 24 months’ imprisonment for striking his father with a log. The two were fighting over a crop field boundary. Ido Mutanga could not […]

An assortment of charms meant to save a 31-year-old Binga man from being slapped with a jail term failed to live up to their billing after the court sentenced him to a 24 months’ imprisonment for striking his father with a log.

The two were fighting over a crop field boundary. Ido Mutanga could not believe his charms had let him down when Binga resident magistrate Stephen Ndlovu handed down the verdict.

He had entered the courtroom armed with an assortment of herbs and small stones, which were only discovered when prison warders whisked him out of the dock after the trial.

The court heard Mutanga struck his 60-year-old father, Mubonka Siakaloba, with a log following a boundary dispute early this month, and left him seriously injured.

Saikaloba sustained serious injuries on the head and was taken to hospital for medical examination and treatment.

A medical doctor’s report confirmed he sustained elliptical lacerations as a result of the attack. A report was made to the police, leading to Mutanga’s arrest.

The magistrate sentenced him to 24 months in jail following his own plea of guilty to assault charges. But four months of the sentence were suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.

Soon after pronouncement of the sentence, prison warders searched his clothes before whisking him away for incarceration.

To their surprise, the warders bumped into an assortment of small stones and herbs Mutanga had carried into the courtroom ostensibly to “charm” court officials to pass a lenient sentence.

In sentencing him, the magistrate told Mutanga that it was taboo in African culture for one to beat one’s father or mother.

He said even the Bible stressed that one should honour one’s parents to live longer. Bruce Maphisa prosecuted.