A third year student at College of Medicine (CoM), has been sentenced to 3 years imprisonment with hard labor by the Chief Resident Magistrate court in Blantyre for Breaking into a building and stole two sets of HP computers and one Central Processing unit (CPU).

According to Blantyre Police Station Public Relations Officer, Sub-Inspector Augustus Nkhwazi, the court heard that the accused, Mtendere Gwanda, on May 31, 2019 broke into the college’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) library and store the said items.

The incident took place while the students were preparing to go for holidays.

Management at the institution discovered that computers were missing in the ICT library after students had already departed for holiday.

When they checked through their security cameras, it was revealed that Gwanda was the one who broke into the office and stole the said items.

Authorities at the College reserved the issue until Gwamba came back from his holyday and when he was shown the security cameras, he confessed and the matter was reported to Blantyre Police on August 30, 2019.

In his submissions, police prosecutor, Sub-Inspector Justice Manolo, asked the court for a stiffer punishment considering that the stolen items were supposed to benefit lot of students in accessing tertiary education.

In mitigations, the accused pleaded with the court to exercise leniency on him saying he committed the offence because he impregnated a fellow college student at the campus and wanted to support the pregnancy.

But passing the sentence, First Grade Magistrate Tsoka Banda agreed with the state and sentenced Gwanda to 3 years imprisonment with hard labor saying this should save as a warning to those intending to commit similar offences in future.