Chief, four others arrested for digging up human bones

A Village Headman in Machinga district and four other people are in police custody for exhuming human bones.

The village headman Dyton Makwesela aged 50 and Lamilo Mambo 35, King Wiskies Tuwaliki Galagate 38, Witman Kadam’manja 29 and Mussa Sanuwedi Kamba 30 got arrested earlier this month after police received a tip from the public that the said suspects were offering human bones for sale.

Machinga Police Station Public Relations Officer Constable Davie Sulumba said following the information, police intensified its investigations and managed to arrest the first two suspects, Makwesela and Mambo on 7th January, 2019 at Nkasaulo Village along Bakili Muluzi highway after they were found with16 human bones.
Sulumba added that the suspects were taken to Liwonde Police where they revealed that they were not alone in the deal and led to the arrest of the other three suspects on 8th January, 2019.
“The suspects also confessed to have hollowed out the bones from two different graves, one at Nantunga village in the area of Paramount Chief Kawinga and the other one at Chilala village,” Sulumba said.
A visit to the grave by the police revealed that the suspects exhumed the body of Abiti Katungwe Chitaile who was a leprosy patient and was laid to rest in 1970 while at the second scene, the suspect failed to locate the grave from which the bones were exhumed from.

All the suspects have since been charged with offences of possessing human tissues, trespassing burial place, unlawful exhumation of human corpes and causing extraction of human tissues contrary to Sections 224 (A), 131 (A), 131 (B) and 131 (C) of the Penal Code as amended in 2016 respectively.
Meanwhile, they have since been remanded to Domasi Prison as the case is still under investigation.
Makwesela comes from Jafali village, Mambo from Kamkwamba village, Wiskies Tuwaliki from Chipamba village, Kadam’manja comes from Kamala village while Sanuwedi comes from Chikaonda Village all from the area of Paramount Chief Kawinga in Machinga district.