A WITNESS narrates to Lusaka Magistrate’s Court how a diplomat’s child was abducted

This is in a matter in which Vincent Lufumbo, a driver for a German diplomat, and his brother Dennis, 34, unemployed, are charged with child stealing.
When the matter came up for trial before principal resident magistrate Obbister Musukwa, a police officer in the criminal investigations department said the child’s father reported her stolen when she was being taken to school.
Arthur Shonga said Lufumbo later told him during an interview that the child was stolen when an unknown man was found in the car after he dropped off the child’s brother.
He said Lufumbo told him he did not know at what point the man got into the car but that he only saw him when he was driving towards the girl’s school.
Mr Shonga said Lufumbo told him that he was threatened by the man as he was carrying a knife and was sitting in the back seat where the child was.
He said Lufumbo further narrated that he was ordered not to drive to the girl’s school but to another area where two more people joined them and that it was at this point that the unidentified man and his colleagues asked him to get in the back seat.
Mr Shonga said Lufumbo told him that he was later injected with an unknown drug and that he showed the police officers the arm where the injection was done, telling them that he slept and only woke up six hours later.
He said he took Lufumbo to the clinic where he was admitted and later discharged at midnight, adding that the police officers asked him to lead them to the scene where the unknown man and his friends are said to have led him.
Mr Shonga said it was too dark to make any conclusion and that it was only in the morning when the crime scene was visited that it was established that there was a car wash which opened at six in the morning and that after interviewing the workers there, it was discovered that no car had come near the car wash.
He said it was at this point that he became suspicious of Lufumbo’s report and asked him to tell the truth.
Mr Shonga said Lufumbo later voluntarily told him that he had taken the child to his grandmother’s village, Fumba, in Mwembeshi in Chief Mungule’s area.
He said Lufumbo led the police officers to his grandmother’s house in the village where the child was found and that Lufumbo’s grandmother, identified as Alice Nyeleti, told the police that the child was brought to her house by Vincent and his brother Dennis.
Mr Shonga said Ms Nyeleti told the police officers that Lufumbo told her that the child was born outside marriage and that his wife had refused to have the child brought into their matrimonial home.
He said Ms Nyeleti added that Lufumbo told her to take care of the child as he was looking for a better place for her to stay.
Mr Shonga said it was later discovered that Lufumbo was injected with diazepam by his brother Dennis and that bottles of the drug were found in Dennis’ house.
Lufumbo did not object to the confession evidence..
It is alleged that the duo on May 29 this year in Lusaka, jointly and while acting together, fraudulently took away Lily Ruth Christine Kankam Boadu from Yaw Kankam-Boadu, her father who had lawful care of the child.
It is further alleged that Lufumbo, who is a driver for the child’s parents, was also charged with ferrying the diplomat’s children to two different schools.
The couple has two children, a boy and a girl.
It is alleged that Lufumbo took the children to school but that he did not take the two-year-old girl to her school after dropping the boy off at his school.
The child was picked up from home at 07:00 hours and was only found the next day in Mwembeshi.