Manchester United game lands Lusaka cop in cells
The love for an average performing English Premier League side, Manchester United, has cost a constable of Lusaka Central Police Station his freedom as his superiors have locked him up together with other criminal suspects in police cells.
Events leading to the cop’s misfortune are that two criminals, Ishmael Kazembe aged 27 and his yet-to-be identified accomplice, broke into a home in Kamwala South armed with a machete and held a family hostage demanding K20,000.
However, after distracting the criminal duo with a meagre K1000, the family overpowered Kazembe and administered upon his body serious panel beating which rearranged his face while his colleague fled with the hundred kwacha notes.
Police sources narrated to Kalemba how their fellow officer found himself in trouble.
According to the sources, Kazembe was so badly beaten that instead of being put in cells, he was admitted to the University Teaching Hospital and the Man United cop assigned to guard him.
However, on Wednesday at 22:00 hours when the Red Devils was huffing and puffing aimlessly on the football pitch against Crystal Palace, the cop abandoned robber Kazembe on bed 13 of Ward C21 and went to scream at the TV hoping Maguire would hear him and prevent Crystal Palace from scoring the equaliser; this didn’t happen as Palace scored the equaliser and the game ended in a boring draw.
But when he returned to Bed 13, lo and behold, like the tomb of the resurrected one, only GRZ bedsheets remained and the panel beaten robber had snaked his way to freedom.
Despite his later applications that he went to look for doctors because the robber seemed in distress, the police command did not buy his story.
Instead of being on the Police Inquiries Desk screaming ‘zinali bwanji’, the cop was thrown into the cells to spend nights on the cold concrete floor until the robber is found as his failure to chain the suspect to the bed was suspicious.
It is yet to be seen how the people he managed to arrest will welcome him in the cells.
Zambia Police Service deputy spokesperson Danny Mwale has confirmed the escape of the robber and the detention of officer whose name has been withheld.
Mwale said the officer explained that he had gone to look for medical staff after the criminal cried in anguish but found he had fled upon return.
“Standard practice is that a suspect must be handcuffed to the bed when admitted to hospital. So we are investigating how the criminal could have escaped. We have detained the the cop because we believe he may know where the suspect is,” Mwale told Kalemba.
Kalemba January 21, 2023