Coach jailed 25 years for sodomising player, 12

THE Kitwe High Court has sentenced a 35-year-old soccer coach of Kitwe’s Twatasha to 25 years imprisonment with hard labour for sodomising a 12-year-old boy.
This is in a case in which Victor Mabimbi was charged with an unnatural offence.
It is alleged that Mabimbi, last year in Kitwe, had unlawful carnal knowledge of a child against the order of nature.
Mabimbi denied the charge but Kitwe resident magistrate Maxwell Mainsa convicted and committed him to the High Court for sentencing.
When the matter came up for sentencing last Thursday, Mabimbi, through Legal Aid counsel Mweendalubi Kapukutula, urged the court to be lenient because he is a first offender who has been in custody since last year.
“And during his time in incarceration, he has learnt that crime does not pay. We, therefore, pray to this honourable court that maximum leniency be exercised on the convict,” he said.
He said Mabimbi is married with children and he also looks after his siblings.
Passing the sentence, Kitwe High Court judge-in-charge Catherine Makungu said: “Having heard and considered what has been said in mitigation, I sentence you to 25 years imprisonment with hard labour with effect from the date of your arrest.”
During trial in the subordinate court, the boy narrated that Mabimbi, who was his football coach, sodomised him and later gave him a K5 to buy a drink.
The boy narrated that Mabimbi also warned him not to dare tell anyone that he had sodomised him.
The boy testified that on the material day, Mabimbi called him to his house where he sodomised him.
The boy told the court that he did not allow Mabimbi to sodomise him.

Zambia Daily Mail