Ombudsman, Martha Chizuma-Mwangonde, has questioned failure by police to arrest more people who were assaulting and taking pictures of a naked woman who was paraded in Limbe, Blantyre a week ago.<\/p>\n
Chizuma-Mwangonde said the offence which the first accused, Bob Kopeka, has been charged with is a misdemeanor and has advised that the charge be amended to Section 5 of the Gender Equality Act which provides for a more strenuous sentence.<\/p>\n
This is among some of the initial findings the Ombudsman has made following a recent visit to Limbe Police Station and Zomba Mental Hospital to appreciate the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police missed an opportunity to arrest the suspects right at the time of the incident and when they rescued the lady. The pictures show a lot of people at the scene who were assaulting her. To end up with only four at the end of the day, does not make sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on information granted to me by Superintendent Jailos of Limbe Police, there is a high chance that the accused who has since been granted bail may simply disappear. However, the police need to do everything in their power to ensure these people attend court,\u201d a report from the Ombudsman\u2019s office reads.<\/p>\n
Police, however, claim that contrary to what the naked pictures suggest, the police officer in the picture was not parading the victim, but rather the picture was taken right at the scene where the woman had just undressed and that there was no one who could have offered her a wrapper.<\/p>\n
Kopeka, who allegedly offered the woman money to undress, was charged with the offence of insulting the modesty of a woman under Section 137 (3) of the Penal Code while his accomplices were charged with indecent assault under Section 137(1) of the Penal Code.<\/p>\n
The Ombudsman has also recommended that the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) should provide a lawyer to assist in the case.<\/p>\n
Chizuma- Mwangonde also met mother of the victim and a clinician who has been treating her and was told that she started displaying signs of mental instability in 2010.<\/p>\n
It is also feared that because of her condition she has been sexually assaulted by men.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Ombudsman has asked the Quality Management Unit at the Ministry of Health to make available monthly injectable drugs which are not available at the Mental Hospital so as to better treat the woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ombudsman, Martha Chizuma-Mwangonde, has questioned failure by police to arrest more people who were assaulting and taking pictures of a naked woman who was paraded in Limbe, Blantyre a week ago. Chizuma-Mwangonde said the offence which the first accused, Bob Kopeka, has been charged with is a misdemeanor and has advised that the charge be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43439,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43435\/revisions\/43439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}