The Bureau Represents Sakala In A Theft Case

Phillimon Sakala was accused of the offence of theft. Sakala sought legal aid from Malawi Legal Aid Bureau and the matter was assigned to Legal Aid Bureau’s counsel Humphrey Panyanja.

Panyanja states that the accused was accused of stealing a CPU, keyboard and mouse of a computer at Chirimba Police Unit.However, after a full trial, the Court in its judgement stated that the Prosecution witnesses had mostly circumstantial evidence and evidence against the accused was very unreliable.

The judgement read that the facts as submitted cannot lead the Court to the only inference of the accused’s guilt and therefore the Court or any reasonable tribunal could safely convict the accused based on the facts presented.

The Court further highlighted that evidence presented did not indicate that the accused took the computer. Due to this, the Court acquitted the accused.

So far the criminal cases remain significantly lower in comparison to the civil cases the Bureau handles yearly despite a 32 percent increase in the cases being handled by the Bureau from 2018/2019 financial year compared to 2019/2020.