Duo sentenced to 15 years in prison for chopping off corpse's arms

Malawi: A Senior Resident Magistrate Court in Chitipa on Tuesday sentenced two men to 15 years in prison each for trespassing on a burial site and 15 years for extracting human tissue from a human corpse, both violations of Sections 131A and 224A of the Penal Code.

The convicts, Aswell Kapira and Rainson Kayira, were arrested in March 2020 as a result of a police investigation into the crimes they committed in August 2018.

Earlier in court, it was revealed that a person with albinism named Bollington Kayira died on 3 July 2018 and was buried the next day at Kamphata in the area of senior Chief Mwenewenya.

His grave was tampered with a month later.

With the court's permission, the police exhumed the body and discovered that two arms had been severed.

In his ruling, Senior Resident Magistrate Abdul Issa Maulidi stated that two sentences would run concurrently but would be subject to confirmation by the High Court.

Aswell Kapira and Rainson Kayira are from Kamiramphande village in Chitipa's Senior Chief Mwenewenya's area.