Two men in Zambia have been handed two-year prison sentences with hard labour after being found guilty of plotting to assassinate the country's president through witchcraft.
The Zambian and Mozambican nationals were convicted last week under a colonial-era witchcraft statute. A court determined they possessed various charms, including a live chameleon, an animal tail, and a dozen bottles of concoctions. These items were reportedly intended to cast a fatal spell on President Hakainde Hichilema.
Ha-ha! Funny Africa story! Those primitives and their hijinks!
BUT!
US Code Title 18, §1751, makes it illegal to kill, attempt to kill, or conspire to kill the president of the United States.
Suppose some law enforcement agency conducted a search on the abode of one or more people the regime really wanted to get on something, and found a cloth effigy of the president of the United States stuffed with pins or something similar.
Want to bet money that some prosecutor wouldn't develop a sudden craving for a ham sandwich and try to convince a grand jury that the intent was there and that the overt act being presumably ineffectual was irrelevant to the matter? It might not work, but prosecutors dig grandstanding whether it really accomplishes anything or not.
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