Lilongwe First Grade magistrate’s court has sentenced five men to three years imprisonment with hard labour each for looting goods worth K23 million during the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) anti-Jane Ansah protests in October last year.

Lilongwe police deputy spokesperson Foster Benjamin said the ruling was handed down on Friday.

All the five suspects come from Msundwe and Mb’watalika in the outskirts of Lilongwe.

In her ruling, magistrate Diana Mangwana said looting chokes the economic life of any country.

She observed that the conviction and the sentence should be s deterrent to other would be offenders.

The convicts are said to have joined the protests at Lilongwe community ground but when they reached Bwandilo junction, they branched off and went to Area 15 where they broke into a shop and saloon.

Mana