The Lusaka Magistrates’ Court has slapped a woman with a two-year jail term for stabbing her boyfriend with a knife in the chest after he refused to buy her cooked beans.

In this matter, Mulenga Chitwansombo was charged with unlawful wounding but had pleaded not guilty.

Particulars of the offence were that on May 21, this year in Lusaka, Chitwansombo unlawfully wounded Tom Phiri.

During trial before Lusaka Magistrate Nthandose Chabala, Phiri, a general worker of Lusaka’s Kaunda Square testified that his ex-girlfriend stabbed him with a knife after he refused to buy cooked beans worth K5 for her.

He told the court that he dated the accused for three years.

Phiri said on the material day, he knocked off from work around 19:00 hours and went home where he prepared himself a meal, T-bone and Chinese cabbage.

He testified that after he was done eating, he started watching television until it was around 23:00 hours when his ex-lover came home and demanded for Nshima.

Phiri said he told her to warm the Nshima on the stove because she was complaining that he left her cold food.

He said Chitwansombo started eating relish while the nshima was warming and after realising that the relish was finished, she demanded that he buys her cooked beans at one of the restaurants in the neighbourhood.

Phiri said, seeing that it was late, he refused and that’s when he was stabbed.

“She opened the door and I told her to go. Then she got an iron bar and hit me on the head. As I walked to her to get the iron bar, Chitwansombo quickly reached for a knife and stabbed me in the chest,” he said.

Phiri said after he was stabbed, he held her as she attempted to run and called out to his brother in the next room for help.

He said later he was taken to Levy Mwanawasa Hospital where he spent almost two months receiving treatment.

And when the matter came up on Friday, magistrate Chabala convicted Chitwansombo of the charge.

In mitigation, the woman said she could not remember what happened, adding that she had a memory problem.

But passing her sentence, magistrate Chabala noted that it was sad that the convict stabbed the person she loves.

She said GBV cases were on the rise and that men like Phiri were victims of the vice.

Magistrate Chabala said in order for the convict to reform, she would sentence her to two years imprisonment.

“You stabbed him in the chest and punctured his lung. In order for you to reform, I sentence you to two years imprisonment with effect from today,” said magistrate Chabala.