Maravi

Court denies Chinese charged with indecent assault bail

Court denies Chinese charged with indecent assault bail
By Mwila Chansa-Ntambi in Luanshya
Fri 02 Dec. 2011, 13:30 CAT

LUANSHYA magistrate Chitundu Nanyangwe Kalungu has refused to grant bail to four Chinese nationals accused of indecently assaulting under-age girls in Luanshya. This is in a case where the four are separately indicted for indecent assault on females contrary to the Laws of Zambia.

Chinese nationals Zhu Xiaujin, Hongping Liu, Zhang Daliu and Yang Ciang Qiang are all accused of indecent assault. They all denied the charge.

The accused persons through their lawyer from Nkana Chambers applied for bail pending trial in line with section 123 of the criminal procedure code cap 88 of the Laws of Zambia.

The lawyer, a Mr Chali, submitted that the accused persons were all of fixed abode and that granting them bail would in no way prejudice the prosecution. He submitted that the accused were willing to abide by all the bail conditions that the court would impose and that they were capable of raising sureties.

But the state objected on grounds that the accused persons may leave the country.

But Chali stated that the fact that the accused persons were not Zambians did not disqualify them from getting bail.

In her ruling, magistrate Kalungu said there were no sufficient grounds to admit the accused persons to bail at present.

She said much as the defence said the accused were willing to surrender their passports, different travel documents could be arranged for the accused by their embassy.

"If for instance different names are used to obtain travel documents, port of exit officers at Zambian ports would be none the wiser," she noted.

Magistrate Kalungu added that while the accused were of fixed abode, it can be agreed that they were not ordinarily resident in Zambia.

She added that it was not known under which circumstances the accused persons were employed.

Magistrate Kalungu therefore denied to grant the accused bail for the aforesaid reasons and granted them leave to appeal to the High Court.

Trial was set for next Monday.

Labels: CHINESE, COURTS, RAPE

posted by MrK @ 5:49 PM