A LUANSHYA Pastor has been fined K4, 000 in a Luanshya Local Court for calling her neighbour a witch and prostitute after she rejected her proposal to pay for prayers to break a spell of her alleged spiritual marriage to a snake.
Aliness Banda, 41 of house number 341C, section 9 Roan Township, a founder member of the Breaking Barriers Ministries Church in Luanshya was charged with defamation of character.
This is in a matter in which Bertha Kaluba, 39, of house number 366 section 9 Roan in Luanshya sued Pastor Banda in the Luanshya local court claiming compensation for defaming her character.
Yesterday, the court heard that on 25th July Pastor Banda called Kaluba a witch and a prostitute as she went in streets praying and singing that God had revealed to her a neighbour who was a witch married to a spiritual snake which prevented her from getting married.
Pastor Banda further claimed that the woman was of middle age and had a crippled child that was product of the spiritual marriage to a snake.
Kaluba said that she had a crippled son who was housebound and that Pastor Banda who claimed to have Godly vision had seen Kaluba sleeping with men in her house to raise money to support her child and that she could pray for her to cast out her demons.
Kaluba said earlier, pastor Banda approached her with a request to pray for her to break her spell of staying unmarried but she refused.
She went on to explain that pastor Banda who claimed to be a prophet said she could see that Kaluba was bound and could not get married unless with the intervention of prayers.
She said Pastor Banda then asked her to buy her a number of six meters chitenge materials, surrender all her clothing and add some money as a seed to allow for heaven to open her doors for marriage.
Kaluba who is a member of the United Church of Zambia refused to comply and said she would wait for God’s time.
It was then that pastor Banda took offence and started calling Kaluba names.
And in her defence, Pastor Banda claimed that God showed her visions of a troubled woman who was a prostitute and a witch and that she only decided to talk about it but did not point at any person.
The woman of God told court that she then decided to take to the streets, preaching the gospel and calling on witches and prostitutes to repent of their sins.
But on the material date, Kaluba reported Pastor Banda to Roan Township Police post for allegedly insulting her.
And a police offer of Roan police post Bertha Pata, 38, testified that Kaluba had reported a case of insults.
Constable Pata told court that said while duty on the material day she summoned pastor Banda to the police.
The pastor shocked onlookers when she stripped naked at the police in protest of being locked up.
Constable Pata said she later decided to lock up both Kaluba and Pastor Banda for conduct likely to cause breach of peace after the two engaged in a bitter exchange of words at the police station.
Local Court Magistrate Fred Hamayangwa fined Pastor Banda K4, 000 to be paid in installments of K1, 000 starting on September 6, and K500 monthly installments thereafter.
Mr Hamayangwa warned members of the community to be wary of false prophets who took advantage of desperate situations to dupe people out of their hard earned money.
He further observed that Pastor Banda was a first offender, but that fining her would help to deter would-be offenders.-ZANIS
