Ngwerere: In a crucial development in the ongoing legal proceedings, Ngwerere Police Station’s Chief Inspector, Frizel Sikalulu, took the stand to provide testimony in a case involving 24-year-old Nalukui Akafelw, which occurred on 24 March 2023.
The accused stands charged with the murder of ten-year-old Chikondi Banda from Chilulu Garden. As per the reports, Chief Inspector Sikalulu’s testimony is expected to play a pivotal role in unravelling the details surrounding this heart-wrenching crime.
Inspector Sikalulu told the Court that Chikondi Banda’s body was found in a decomposed state and quickly informed his grandmother Agnes Tembo, who identified the deceased and later took the body to the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) mortuary for postmortem.
He informed the court that the postmortem was conducted on March 24, 2023, and the findings showed that the cause of death was a blunt impact trauma to the head due to the assault.
The incident is reported to have happened on March 17, 2023. Inspector Sikalulu told the court that investigations were instituted, and officers managed to get the number of the accused.
Further, he said the number was registered in the name of Nalukwui Akafelwa. Inspector Sikalulu told the court that the accused hit the boy with a stone on his head on March 16, 2023, between 20 to 21 hours.
He also told the court that the accused sent a message to the deceased Aunty Elizabeth Tembo demanding a ransom of twelve thousand kwacha in exchange for the boy.
Inspector Sikalulu said that according to the aunty to the deceased, she received the message around 24:03 hours on March 17, 2023, and quickly involved the police.
“Your honour, the accused was put on March 28, 2023, in detention and cooperated with police in leading them to where he killed the little boy and where he left the body behind. Emmasdale Police in the maize field; every move was recorded on camera your honour”, he testified.
He told the court that later, a docket of murder section 200 of the penal code chapter 87 of the laws of Zambia was opened against Nalukui Akafelwa. Judge Bowa Mwape has adjourned the matter to February 12, 2024.