A war veteran from Mashonaland Central Province who assaulted 116 pupils at a local school in October last year has been handed a 3-year jail term.
Solomon Samu will, however, serve an effective two years behind bars.
The war veteran who hails from Kanyemba Village under Chief Dotito in Mount Darwin, confronted the school’s deputy headmaster, Paddington Musake, in October last year and demanded the go-ahead to beat up pupils for ill-discipline.
The petrified headmaster could not prevail and Samu went ahead and beat up the learners, beginning with Grade Seven pupils who were about to write their final exams.
In passing the sentence, magistrate Tendai Muchena said:
The accused had the intention to harm all the children at the school and it is hard to imagine a country where an individual approaches a school from nowhere and demand the right to assault children.
The incident took place in October 2018 with school authorities immediately filing a formal complaint with police against the war veteran.
However, Samu was only arrested last week after the intervention of parents and the Social Welfare Department.