Man jailed 12 years for defilement
Ntcheu First Grade Magistrate Court on Monday jailed Mabvuto Frank for 12 years for defiling and impregnating a 14-year-old girl who was later murdered by unidentified people.
The court heard that on her way from school in June, Frank, who was her uncle, pulled the victim into his house and defiled her.
According to court records, she did not disclose her ordeal to her mother—as she was afraid she would be scolded—until in October when it was discovered she was five months pregnant.
However, court records indicate that the girl initially identified her father, Mathews Liwala, as the person who was responsible for her pregnancy.
According to First Grade Magistrate Johnes Masula, in the process of court proceedings, the girl named Frank instead, which led to his arrest and Liwala’s acquittal.
In mitigation, Frank asked the court to consider having the girl examined by medical experts to establish who between Liwala and himself had impregnated the girl.
It was then that the court learnt that the girl had been killed by unknown assailants as the case was in progress.
In his ruling, Masula said defilement is a serious offence which attracts the maximum sentence of life imprisonment according to Section 138 of the Penal Code.
“Defilement cases are on the increase, thereby making young girls to live in fear. These cases impact negatively on girls’ education and livelihoods,” he said.
Frank, 28, hails from Kaloga Village in the area of Traditional Authority Mpando in Ntcheu.
I see miscarriage of justice here. How can they jail the guy without real proof. The victim is dead so nobody can crosscheck the evidence & she herself had even flip flopped on the issue. A magistrate mwatani.
Totally agree with you Chelin, apparently the victim initially identified another man as the one responsible for the pregnancy and then switched to his uncle. And when the second accused requested some test to identify the real person responsible for the pregnancy, the girl is murdered before the test is carried out.
The problem is we do not have a competent police in Malawi that could investigated the murder to understand the motive. It could be that the person who murdered her was trying to cover their tracks.
It is becoz of this poor policing that so many innocent people are languishing in Malawian jails today.