Last week, a horrific incident occurred in Zambia: two male fortune tellers who planned to assassinate the country's president were sentenced to two years in prison.
Police reported that at the end of 2024, 43-year-old Zambian Leonard Pxiri and 42-year-old Mozambican Justin Kandungede were detained at a hotel in the capital, Lusaka. The hotel attendant, hearing strange sounds and reporting with extreme caution to the police, found various magical items in every corner of the room where the fortune-tellers lived. Among them were a live chameleon, a tail part of an unknown animal, 12 bottles of medicinal substances, and similar magic tools.
Investigations revealed that the fortune-tellers' goal was to enchant Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and subsequently harm his life. This operation was planned to be carried out by "magical" methods, according to their imagination.
According to reports, the conspiracy to assassinate the president was orchestrated by the fortune tellers, Nelson Banda, brother of prominent local politician Emmanuel Banda, and they were paid 2 million Zambian kwashi (approximately $73,000). The defendants fully admitted their guilt during the trial.
For information, there is a law prohibiting magic that has been in force in the country since 1914. According to it, any act of pretending to possess magical or supernatural abilities, trying to frighten or harm people, is considered a fortune-telling activity. The maximum punishment for such a crime is imprisonment for up to three years.
It should be recalled that a similar situation was previously observed in the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince: it was reported that members of the criminal group accused 110 people of witchcraft and violently interfered with their lives. This phenomenon shows that the issue of fortune-telling and political security is of serious global importance.
Read 'Zamin' on Telegram!
