This archive report was first published on 29 November 2019.
On November 29, 2019, a high court in Zambia handed down a 15-year jail sentence to two men who were caught having sex in a lodge with open windows.
The men, Japhet Chataba and Steven Samba, had booked a room at the lodge in Kapiri Mposhi, central Zambia, where they committed the act in 2017.
One of the workers at the lodge peeped through an open window and saw the two men having sex, alerting her colleagues who also caught a glimpse of the couple.
The court heard that the open windows had been a temptation for anyone to have a look, considering the groans coming from the room.
On appeal, the high court judge Charles Zulu refused to review the verdict of the lower court, upholding the conviction and handing down the 15-year sentence.
“The trial court cannot be faulted and there is no basis to review or substitute the conviction and I further find that there were no irregularities by the trial court,” Judge Zulu said, as quoted by the state-owned Zambia Daily Mail newspaper.
Same-sex relationships are frowned upon in Zambia, and homosexual acts are illegal. The country's President Edgar Lungu has previously spoken out against gay rights, saying he would not impose them on Zambians in exchange for donor aid.
