POLICE OFFICER APPEALS OVER NEGLIGENCE SENTENCE

Alex Mphatso Uledi, a Malawi police officer has filed an appeal to the High Court challenging his custodial sentence after being convicted for negligence offense by public officer for losing an official rifle and 15 rounds of ammunition when he was on duty at night.

Lilongwe magistrate court magistrate Patrick Chirwa sentenced Uledi to two and a half year in prison with hard labour after he was convicted of negligence by public officer following the missing of police rifle (gun) which the convict had in possession while on duty.

According to the convict`s lawyer, Lugano Mwabutwa of Blackstone Chambers, the cop has appealed the sentence on six grounds that they feel the lower court didn’t took into consideration when passing the judgment.

Uledi lost the gun while on duty last year after he went to sleep and his fellow police officers arrested him after they were not satisfied with his explanation to the incident.

But in his application on Wednesday to the High Court judge, Justice Esmie Chombo, lawyer Mwabutwa asked the court to consider overturning the sentence describing it as excessive and very unfair to the convict.

“The 30 months IHL sentence is a disgrace as the appellant is a first offender who in the process due to his conviction has lost a job,” he argued.

The UK trained barrister, Mwabutwa told the court that among other reasons for an appeal is that the lower court used a wrong principle of law to give the appellant the 30 months IHL sentence and that it didn’t take to account contributory evidence the accused gave to the court.

He continued to say that the lower court gave Uledi what he described it as “excessive sentence” without putting into consideration that there’s reinstitution of the missing gun as it was found with one who confessed to have stolen it.