A PATHOLOGIST has painted a painful picture of injuries businessman Alex Kanyama Zulu may have suffered and eventually led to his death.
Zulu’s wife Mildred Mwila Kasase and son Alex Madiba Zulu are on trial for his murder.
In this case Kasase, an assistant director at the Ministry of health is jointly charged with her 20-year old son Alex Madiba Zulu for murder.
It is alleged that the two killed Zulu on July 29, 2023.
Cordelia Himwaze, a pathologist under the forensic department told judge Irene Mbewe that she conducted postmortem on Zulu’s body on August 8, 2023 following an order by a magistrate.
She said upon exhuming the corpse police gave her a background of the circumstances that led to Zulu’s death.
Himwaze said she did a skin incision she observed that Zulu had internal bleeding on the left arm and his humerus bone was fractured.
“On the right upper chest he had bleeding which extended deep into the lower back. I then went ahead to conduct examination of the external organs which mostly were in their usual state except for the heart that was enlarged,” Himwaze said.
“I was given a history that he was hypertensive. I then opened the skull, everything was in its usual state. when I finished my postmortem examination, I gave my preliminary cause of death which was blunt impact trauma to torso due to assault. This means the injuries sustained were as a result of blunt force due to assault because I was given a history that he was involved in an altercation.”
She added that the bleeding in different parts of the body might have caused stress on the heart which was already enlarged causing the death.
Felix Chibomba a clinical officer at
Italian Orthopedic hospital said when the deceased went to seek medical attention at the hospital, he noticed that his right arm was bandaged and there was swelling and the right arm was separated from the shoulder.
“After I assessed his arm, I was of the impression that he had fractured his right humerus. I sent him (Zulu) for an X-ray to confirm my assessment. When he brought back the x-ray, I put it up on the x-ray viewer which is bright light. I asked him to stand so that I could see where the injury was,” Chibomba said.
“That moment he asked me if it was okay for him to invite the son (Alex Madiba Zulu) so that he could listen to the explanation about the x-ray revelations.
At that moment the x-ray was showing a transverse structure of the lower limb one third.(A humerus is divided into three parts there is the upper 1 third, the middle part and there is a lower one Third) I classify it as a simple fracture because the born did not penetrate through the skin. The skin was intact.”
He said Zulu asked his son to walk out of the consultation room to which he later asked about the options that were available for treatment but he (Chibomba) could not propose any because he was too junior.
“I told him there is an option of operation which I told him there are two options to put an interlocking nail with a minor incision or put a plate if we had a problem of inserting an interlocking nail,” Chibomba said.
He said he consulted an orthopedist Professor Yakub Mulla about the treatment options based on the X -ray results and Zulu settled for interlocking which was the best treatment as advised by the professor.
“He (Zulu) told me he is ready for a surgery there and then. He said he left Levy Mwanawasa because he don’t want to wait for Monday. We did baseline, took him to the ward, gave instructions to the nurses to watch his vital signs to ensure he is starved and wait for further instructions from professor Mula,”said Chibomba.
In his testimony Prof Mula said Zulu died hours after surgery due to hypertension.
He said he experienced difficulties in breathing and when his medical team tried to conduct a cardinal pulmonary resuscitation but they could not resuscitate him.
The orthopedist said Zulu had informed him that he had fallen upon inquiring how he fractured his humerus.
Trial continues on May 2, 2024.
By Mwaka Ndawa
Kalemba April 20, 2024
