A court in Zambia has sentenced two men to two years in prison for attempting to use witchcraft to kill President Hakainde Hichilema.

According to the BBC, Zambian national Leonard Phiri and Mozambican Jasten Mabulesse Candunde were convicted under the Witchcraft Act after being arrested in December with charms, including a live chameleon.

“It is my considered view that the convicts were not only the enemy of the head of state but were also enemies of all Zambians,” magistrate Fine Mayambu said in his ruling.

The case has attracted wide attention as it is the first time anyone has been tried for attempting to use witchcraft against a president in Zambia. Prosecutors said Phiri and Candunde were hired by a fugitive former MP to bewitch Hichilema.

The men claimed they were traditional healers, but the court found them guilty on two counts under the Witchcraft Act.

“The two accepted ownership of the charms. Phiri further demonstrated that the chameleon’s tail, once pricked and used in the ritual, would cause death to occur within five days,” Magistrate Mayambu said.

Their lawyer, Agrippa Malando, said they pleaded for leniency as first-time offenders and asked the court to impose a fine, but this was rejected.

Magistrate Mayambu said many people in Zambia, like in other African countries, believed in witchcraft even though it was not scientifically proven.

He added that the law was meant to protect society from fear and harm caused by those claiming to use witchcraft.

“The question is not whether the accused are wizards or actually possess supernatural powers. It is whether they represented themselves as such, and the evidence clearly shows they did,” Magistrate Mayambu said.

Alongside the two-year sentence for “professing” witchcraft, the men were given six months for possessing charms. The sentences will run concurrently, meaning they will serve two years from their arrest date in December 2024.

Hichilema has previously said he does not believe in witchcraft and has not commented on the case.

Lawyer Dickson Jere told the BBC that the Witchcraft Act was introduced in 1914 during colonial rule. He said people are “very rarely” prosecuted for practising witchcraft, but the law helps protect elderly women who might otherwise face mob attacks in villages after being accused of causing someone’s death through witchcraft.

Witchcraft has also been mentioned in the ongoing dispute between the government and the family of late President Edgar Lungu over his burial. Some believe the government’s insistence that he be buried in Zambia, against his family’s wishes, may be for “occult reasons”. The government has denied this.

Lungu died in South Africa in June, and his body remains in a morgue there as no agreement has been reached on his burial. (Nigerian Tribune, excluding headline)