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Walter Nyamukondiwa Mashonaland West Bureau
A Chinhoyi High School teacher, Joseph Mpala, who was accused of fatally assaulting a Form 3 pupil with a cricket bat in 2009, has been acquitted. Mpala was found not guilty of murder and acquitted by High Court judge Justice Owen Tagu.

The matter was withdrawn after plea and a not guilty verdict was passed. Mpala was jointly charged with school caretaker Lameck Katungunde. Allegations against Mpala were that on October 22, 2009 he went to Chinhoyi High School swimming pool where he found the late Moreblessing Musiiwa playing with 12 other boys.

Mpala was the school sports director and was alleged to have ordered the boys to come out of the pool before screening them to fish out those who had no proper attire. The State further alleged that Moreblessing ran into a storeroom where Mpala followed and armed himself with a bat, which he used to strike him to death.

He is said to have dumped the boy’s body in the swimming pool where it was found floating after three days. Searches conducted before the body floated to the surface of the pool were futile as it was not possible to see the bottom of the pool which was undergoing renovations at the time.

Mpala was arrested and charged with murder and spent eight years waiting for his day in court. In his defence, Mpala argued that there was no blood found in the vicinity of the alleged offence. He also leaned on the findings of South Africa-based pathologists who said DNA results on the cricket bat were inconclusive.

“Inconclusive DNA results were obtained from the cricket bat and shorts; the DNA profiles of the deceased could not be matched to any of the suspects,” reads a report from the Forensic Science Laboratory. The samples were further analysed in South Africa and were also inconclusive. Mpala further argued that Moreblessing could have already drowned before he went to the pool.

“There was a lot of chaos from the students, which is why he stopped the swimming session,” read part of the defence outline.
“The pool was not a see through so much that one could not see the bottom of the pool from outside.”