A MAN from Msenampongo area in Binga has been slapped with 210 hours of community service after he beat up his father accusing him of witchcraft following the death of his three sisters, who all died while giving birth on different dates.
BY SILAS NKALA
Million Siabutu (40) pleaded guilty to a domestic violence charge when he appeared before Binga resident magistrate Stephen Ndlovu.
The magistrate convicted and sentenced him to 12 months in jail. Six months of the sentence were suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.
The remaining six months were suspended on condition he performed 210 hours of community service at Msenampongo Primary School.
When the magistrate asked him why he assaulted his father, something considered taboo, Siabutu said: “I was disciplining him”.
“I asked him about witchcraft and he said he has since abandoned the acts,” he said.
But the magistrate shot back: “Who is supposed to be disciplining the other between son and father? Would you allow your son to discipline you?”
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Siabutu was not about to concede. “Yes I would allow my son to discipline me if I am wrong,” he said.
Siabutu claimed his father admitted to have bewitched the family, although he told him that he had since abandoned his acts and disposed the wares of his craft.
His father, Twenty Siabutu (77), asked the court to forgive him and not send him to jail, but the magistrate said it was taboo for parents to be assaulted by their children and he must be punished, before handing down the sentence.
Prosecutor Bruce Maphosa told the court that Siabutu and his father stay together and on March 18 2015 Siabutu approached his father after his sister had died mysteriously a week before.
The sister was the third to die in the family and all of them died after giving birth.
Siabutu confronted his father soon after the burial of his sister.
He accused the father of bewitching them saying he was the one who was killing his sisters and would wipe the whole family out.
Siabutu pounced on his father with a stick, assaulting him several times. The father later made a report to the police, leading to Siabutu’s arrest.
