On 10 November 2010, media reports stated that Lusaka Province ruling party Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) youth chairperson Chris Chalwe had been jailed for one year with hard labour for common assault by the magistrates court.According to reports in The Post of 10 November 2010 and the Zambia Daily Mail of 11 November 2010 monitored by MISA Zambia, Chalwe was however acquitted on a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by Senior Resident Magistrate David Simusamba.
Chalwe stood charged with two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm contrary to section 248 of the Penal Code chapter 87 of the Laws of Zambia. In count one, Chalwe is alleged to have assaulted Post newspaper journalist Chibaula David Silwamba.
Particulars of the offence are that Chalwe on 29 July 2009 in Lusaka assaulted Silwamba, thereby occasioning him actual bodily that there was physical harm inflicted on the two victims.
He said the medical reports cast a doubt on his mind. I note that the offence committed was of political nature and that it was becoming rampant to our young democracy, he said.
Magistrate Simusamba said Chalwe had a right to appeal within 14 days.
Earlier, when defence lawyer Keith Mukata was about to mitigate, magistrate Simusamba said there was no mitigation because he had already mitigated for him.
Background
The ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party supporters assaulted journalists from state owned Times of Zambia newspaper and The Post, an independent newspaper at Lusaka International Airport, while awaiting to cover the arrival of President Rupiah Banda from Uganda. Reporters, Anthony Mulowa, and Richard Mulonga, from Times of Zambia and Chibabula Silwamba and Collins Phiri from The Post were attacked on 29 July 2009. President Rupiah Banda condemned the action, but MISA and other media associations called for the arrest and prosecution of offenders
On 7 August, 2009, MISA Zambia and other media bodies undertook a protest march to seek governments interventions on the number of physical attacks on journalists by political supporters. The journalists presented a petition to Zambian Vice President George Kunda at Mulungushi International Conference Center in Lusaka. Kunda received the petition from the media associations on behalf of President Rupiah Banda who had travelled to South Africa for a medical checkup and bilateral talks with the President of that country Jacob Zuma.
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