BLANTYRE – Malawi’s high court has sentenced to death a man who murdered a young albino, an unprecedented penalty in a country which has seen a surge in attacks and killings of people with albinism.

Willard Mikaele, then 28, was convicted of killing 19-year-old Mphatso Pensulo in the southern district of Thyolo in 2017.

“He planned to kill an albino so as to get rich fast as advised by the herbalist,” judge Maclean Kamwambe said in handing down the sentence on Friday in Thyolo.

“It has been reiterated that there will be times when death sentence shall be unavoidable due to the circumstances and that it should be reserved for such occasions,” the judge said.-TheZambianObserver