Tobe Deported at the End of Jail Sentence
Dowa
First Grade magistrate Court has sentenced 71 Ethiopian nationals to serve 3
months imprisonment with hard labour and that after their jail term government should
deport them all.
The
court also fined them K5, 000 each.
The
convicted Ethiopians included 40 people arrest in the dawn of Tuesday 7th
January and other 31 who were arrested on 15th January this year by
Dowa police officers at Mbalame village along Dowa Lumbadzi Road. The arrests were made following tipoff from
the members of the general public as police in the district were in a sweeping
exercise.
On
Monday Dowa First Grade Magistrate Amulani Phiri heard from two prosecutors Inspector
Ivy Sangwa and Sergeant Agnes Mphinga that the Ethiopian nationals entered the
country illegally and were trying to sneak into Dzaleka Refugee Camp.
All
suspects admitted that they managed to enter the country from the help of some
Malawians and other Ethiopian nationals who are also in police custody. They pleaded
guilty to the offences of entering the country illegally.
The
prosecutors pleaded with the court to impose a stiff punishment for others to
get a lesson.
First
Grade Magistrate Phiri concurred with the prosecutors that stiff punishment was
necessary to deter the malpractice. Both Malawian and Ethiopian nationals who
were in the business of aiding the Ethiopian nationals to enter the country
illegally will also soon appear before court.
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