A Zambian court has sentenced two men to two years in prison for attempting to use witchcraft to kill President Hakainde Hichilema.
According to the BBC, Leonard Phiri, a Zambian national, and Jasten Mabulesse Candunde, a Mozambican, were convicted under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act after their arrest in December 2024. Police said the men, believed to be practising witchdoctors, were found in possession of assorted charms, including a live chameleon.
Delivering judgment, Judge Fine Mayambu said the evidence proved the men intended to use the charms against the president. “It is my considered view that the convicts were not only the enemy of the head of state but were also enemies of all Zambians,” he declared.
The trial, which drew widespread public attention, was the first in Zambia involving an alleged attempt to use witchcraft against a sitting president. Authorities said the pair had been hired by a fugitive former lawmaker to target Hichilema.
Despite claiming to be traditional healers, the court noted the men admitted ownership of the charms. Phiri reportedly demonstrated that pricking the tail of the chameleon and using it in a ritual could cause death within five days.
Their lawyer, Agrippa Malando, pleaded for leniency on the grounds that they were first-time offenders who could be fined instead of imprisoned. The court, however, rejected the plea. Judge Mayambu stressed that the Witchcraft Act, which dates back to 1914, still serves to shield society from fear and manipulation.
“The question is not whether the accused are wizards or actually possess supernatural powers. It is whether they represented themselves as such, and the evidence clearly shows they did,” he ruled.
Both men were sentenced to two years for professing witchcraft and six months for possessing charms, but the terms will run concurrently, meaning they will serve two years effective from their December 2024 arrest.
Legal expert Dickson Jere described such prosecutions as rare, noting that the Witchcraft Act was originally designed to protect vulnerable groups, particularly elderly women, from mob violence sparked by accusations of sorcery.
The conviction comes as witchcraft remains a sensitive subject in Zambia, also featuring in disputes over the burial of former President Edgar Lungu, who died in South Africa in June. The government has insisted he be buried in Zambia, against his family’s wishes, a stance critics allege is tied to occult considerations.
