East cops exhume Nyimba man’s body after new evidence emerges

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Exhumed body-Pic credit-The Post

POLICE in Eastern Province have decided to exhume the body of a Nyimba man who was found by the roadside in bizarre circumstances last month.

Provincial police commissioner Eugene Sibote said in an interview yesterday that Petani Tembo, 20 allegedly died in a hit-and-run traffic incident around Kacholola area on the Great East Road on October 7.

“A body was found lying on the road, the intestines were out and because the body was on the road, people suspected that this person must have been hit by a vehicle that didn’t stop,” Sibote said. “The body was taken to Nyimba hospital where a post-mortem was done and after that it was buried. At that particular time, it was treated as a road traffic accident.”

But Sibote disclosed that on October 29, police received new information that there was a person who had gone to a witchdoctor to obtain “cleansing herbs” after allegedly participating in the killing of a person.

“So when this issue came to light, we made a follow-up and that’s how we arrested this man, who actually happened to have been a taxi driver by the name of Mateyo Mwanza,” he said.

“So this man revealed to us that (Tembo), who was found on the roadside on October 7, was not hit by a vehicle but was killed by some people who used (a) metal bar to hit him on the head. When he was unconscious, that group of people got him and got the taxi of this same Mateyo Mwanza, collected the body and went into the bush.”

Sibote said Mwanza informed them that while in the bush, the suspects removed some body parts, including the heart and the private parts.

“After removing the parts they got the same body again, put it in the taxi and came to the roadside and dumped the body on the road. That’s when they told this taxi driver to go and they also went the other way. But this taxi driver knew these people,” Sibote said. “This taxi driver went to the car wash because his vehicle was blood stained. The story he gave those that were cleaning the vehicle was that he was carrying some beef, that there was a cow that was hit somewhere so he carried some of that meat.”

Sibote said Mwanza further told the police that the issue stuck on his mind and that was how he approached a witchdoctor for cleansing.

He said police have since arrested Mwanza, 33-year-old Paul Nyangu of chief Nyalugwe’s chiefdom in Nyimba, and Alfred Lungu, 27 of the same area.

Sibote said police also retrieved the metal bar suspected to have been used as well as the taxi.

He said pathologists would therefore exhume the body and conduct another post-mortem.
And Sibote said a 31-year-old woman of Gileya village in chief M’bang’ombe’s area in Katete died in the early hours of yesterday after she was struck by lightning.

The Post

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