CHOMBA MUSIKA – Choma
THE Choma Magistrate’s Court has slapped a two-year jail sentence with hard labour on a 22-year-old man of Choma’s Kamunza Township for stealing a hairdryer and blower worth K900 from a salon.
This is in a case in which Crispin Kapila, of house number 9, pleaded guilty to theft.
Kapila on Christmas Day last year in Choma, stole a hairdryer and blower from Mercy Malumani.
Kapila appeared before magistrate Mbololwa Mukela last Wednesday for written facts.
Evidence before the court is that on December 25 last year around 08:00 hours, Ms Malumani opened her salon situated on Macha road.
She later left the salon and went to a nearby shop but found her blower and dryer missing when she returned.
On January 29 this year, Ms Malumani received a phone call from one of her clients who informed her that someone was selling her missing property.
Ms Malumani rushed to the scene and identified the property as hers. Kapila was apprehended and taken to Choma Central Police Station where the recovered property was valued at K900.
In mitigation, Kapila, who was clad in a Manchester United replica jersey, asked the court to exercise leniency on him because conditions in prison are bad.
“I have a stomach upset. Remand prison is bad, they don’t allow me to take traditional medicine,” Kapila said.
But Ms Mukela wondered why Kapila did not want to go to prison when his actions were tantamount to knocking on prison doors.
“As human beings, God has given us the power to think, so think before you act and if all you think of is stealing other people’s property, then you are knocking on prison doors.
“So you will go to prison so that innocent people like the woman you stole from can live in peace and make ends meet,” Ms Mukela said.