RABECCA BANDA writes
A court in Lusaka has ordered a man to return household items his ex-lover requested him to keep for her but reportedly failed to return them when she wanted it back. Chilenje senior local court magistrate Ackim Phiri, sitting with magistrate Patrick Nyirenda, ordered Evans Musonda, 38, of Chalala to return the household goods to his ex-lover Catherine Namutale, 39, of Chongwe who had sued him over the same. Magistrate Phiri ordered Mr Musonda to return the household goods within two months saying they were not his but merely given to him for safekeeping. The plaintiff, Ms Namutale, told court that on a date unknown but in July 2017, she took her household goods to Musonda’s house for safe keeping after the friend who initially kept them informed her she could no longer look after them. “I bought the house hold goods. At first I kept the items at my friend’s place but when she could no longer keep them, I requested Musonda to keep them for me,” Namutale said. “The same year in August, I called him asking to take my things back but he hesitated,” she said.
“I called him after a few days, he told me that he shifted. I kept on calling him until I travelled out of the country,” Namutale said.
“I called him again when I returned but he told me that some items were broken and that he had given out some of the goods,” she said.
Namutale said, “I want him to return all my goods.”
Mr Musonda confirmed the two were in a relationship and that Ms Namutale in fact gave him, as a gift, the household goods she was not using. “Namutale told me that she had household goods that she wasn’t using and wanted to give it to me. Two weeks later, she brought the goods to my house for me to use. She sometimes stayed at my house and used the same items,” Musonda said. “When I received the goods, I kept some and gave out others. The remaining items were only two bags containing her clothes which she did not give to me,” Musonda said. He said that, “Our relationship ended when she heard I got married and that’s the reason she was even asking me to return her items.”
“I cannot return them because she gave them to me as a gift,” Musonda said.
