Precious money counted in court
AN arresting officer was yesterday forced to manually count K50, 000 of the K200, 000 murder convict Precious Longwe allegedly stole from Banc ABC, her then employer, after a money counting machine became faulty.
The Lusaka Magistrates’ court seven went dead silent as everyone keenly watched the officer Sunday Bwali count the money in K100 notes.
After finishing counting the first of the four bunches, public prosecutor Aron Ntuntuluka asked Mr. Bwali to try the machine again and this time around it worked accordingly, enabling the witness to count the cash smoothly.
Mr. Bwali said before Magistrate Nthandose Chabala that after Longwe shot dead her husband Akakanda Lubinda Litebele, he went to the couple’s home in Woodlands to look for extensive murder evidence by conducting a thorough search in the house.
Evidence before court showed that Longwe allegedly stole the money a day before she killed Litebele. Mr. Bwali said while searching the bedroom, he found a brown suit case containing ladies’ clothes and four bundles of K100 notes, three of which had Banc ABC labels in a Banc ABC branded clear plastic.
“We went to the police and counted the money thoroughly in presence of Precious’ mother. I asked Precious about the money but she denied knowledge of it. She only revealed that her money was in a white handbag.
“Together with the mother we went back to the house and we found K35, 950 in the white handbag. I invited Banc ABC operations manager Anastasia Shula to come and look at the money and we went back to Precious’ house to check further,” he said.
He said on July 9, 2016 Ms. Shula and her workmates went back to Woodlands police station to complain that K200, 000 was missing and that it was meant to replenish two ATMs.
“To support their complaint they brought a vault register which showed that K400, 000 was released to Precious Longwe on 24th May 2016 to replenish two ATMs located at Banc ABC House branch. They also produced two journals for the old ATM number A10110000 and the new ATM number A10110030.
“The journals showed that on 24th May, 2016, K50, 000 was replenished in the old ATM and K150, 000 was replenished in the new ATM, bringing the total to K200, 000 and meaning that K200, 000 was missing.” Trial continues.