Man gets 30 years for murder

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter A Chitungwiza man who killed another man for spilling his beer will spend 30 years in jail after being convicted of murder with actual intent. It was proved he planned the murder for at least half an hour before attacking the victim rather than overreacting on the spur of the moment […]

Man gets 30 years for murder

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter

A Chitungwiza man who killed another man for spilling his beer will spend 30 years in jail after being convicted of murder with actual intent.

It was proved he planned the murder for at least half an hour before attacking the victim rather than overreacting on the spur of the moment while drunk. 

Guthrie Chichetu fatally stabbed Ernest Makwembere with a piece of broken glass for spilling his bear at Unit J Shopping Centre in Chitungwiza in October 2021. Makwembere died on admission to Chitungwiza General Hospital. 

Chichetu admitted responsibility for the killing but denied premeditated murder, but offered a plea of guilty to a lesser charge of culpable homicide, when his trial commenced before High Court judge, Justice Esther Muremba. He blamed his actions on intoxication and drug abuse. Culpable homicide is a killing that results from an action that a reasonable person would recognise could lead to serious injury or death but where there was no intention to kill.

The prosecution did not accept the limited plea and pushed for a full trial and managed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt that Chichetu planned the murder for nearly half an hour before the attack. 

Justice Muremba and her two assessors found Chichetu guilty of murder with actual intent and the judge then passed the 30-year sentence.

 Though he showed remorse and apologised to the victims’s family in the gallery, the facts meant the murder charge was proven. 

“Stiffer penalties are called for against people who voluntarily take intoxicating substances and end up engaging in violent behaviour causing unnecessary loss of lives like what happened in the present case,” said Justice Muremba. “There is a need to deter offenders and other would-be offenders from engaging in such conduct.” 

However, the way Chichetu expressed remorse throughout the trial found sympathy from the court and Justice Muremba said he deserved another chance, while the sentence imposed on Chichetu would make the victim’s family and the society at large feel that justice was done in the matter. 

In his defence, Chichetu claimed that on the day he was socialising with his friends at the council market at night and a slight altercation ensued between him and Makwembere. 

He said Makwembere knocked over his beer glass in circumstances which led him to believe that Makwembere’s actions were deliberate and intended to provoke him. 

He reacted in anger by picking a shard from a broken glass and attacked his victim with it. He said he was drinking beer that day and was drunk. 

The prosecution then proved that there was a delay between the altercation and the attack, and so it moved from being an immediate drunken reaction to being a planned and premeditated fatal assault.