A court in Mangochi has jailed two men for assaulting four people during a fight over land.
The two, Mbaluku Matola and Mdala James, have been sentenced to four and three years imprisonment with hard labour respectively.
Mangochi Police Prosecutor Efford Kamphonje told the court that the two on July 26, 2017 started a fight in which four people sustained injures.
Mangochi Police later arrested the two men and they were charged with unlawful wounding in accordance with section 241 (A) of the penal code.
Appearing before court, Matola and James pleaded guilty to the offence.
In mitigation, the convicts asked for leniency saying they are breadwinners of their families and imprisonment is going to inject poverty in their families.
But the police prosecutor told the court to give them stiff penalty considering that they were stubborn despite an earlier court ruling on the land dispute hence the fight would have been avoided had the convicts refrained from taking the law into their own hands.
Mangochi Second Grade Magistrate Augustine Mizaya noted that the act of the two brought fear to the general public hence they deserved custodial sentence.
Mbalaka and Mdala hail from Village Bakili Traditional Authority Makanjira in Mangochi.
