Sad! Thy tried to hang him three times, but got tired

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Byson Kaula is a resident of Malawi whom according to him, jealous neighbours were responsible of his wrongful incarceration and accusation of murder.
Byson was brought up in a small village in Southern Malawi. Having made enough money while working in the gas industry in Johannesburg, South Africa, he opted to return home and buy land. He dove into farming and employed five labourers on his farm growing,maize, wheat, cassava and some fruit.

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Neighbours attacked one of his employees, leaving him badly injured. The man couldn’t walk without assistance, and while helping him get to the toilet – navigating steps that were slippery after heavy rain – Byson fell and dropped him. The man died later in hospital, and Byson was charged with murder.

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Byson Kaula who was 40 years at the time, says jealous neighbours were responsible for him being found guilty of murder. The year was 1992 and murder in those days carried a mandatory death sentence.


His mother, Lucy, sitting at the back of the courtroom, couldn’t hear the sentence being read out and had to ask what was happening. When she was told that his son had been sentenced to death, “tears rolled from my eyes down my chest,” she says.

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This was towards the end of the totalitarian government of Hastings Banda, which had controlled the country since 1964. Byson vividly remembers the horror of waiting for his turn at what he calls “the killing machine”.

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“When I was told: ‘You can go now to the condemned section waiting for your time to be hanged’ – oh, I felt as if I was already dead.”

At that time, there was just one executioner – a South African who travelled between several countries in the region, carrying out hangings. When he arrived in Malawi, once every couple of months, the prisoners on death row knew that time, for some of them, had run out.

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One day Byson remembers being told that his name was on the list of 21 people to be hanged within hours. A guard told him that executions would begin at 1300 and that he should “just start praying”.

They continued until 1500, when the executioner stopped work. But he had not reached the end of the list. Three people, including Byson, would have to wait until he returned.

“He was the only one operating that machine. And on that day, I understand he said: ‘No it’s too much, I’ll come again next month,'” Byson says.

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The same thing happened twice more, Byson says. The list was drawn up, but the hangman didn’t finish it – and each time, by chance, Byson was among those left alive at the end of the day. On the third occasion, all the prisoners on the list were executed except him, he says.

In a way he was lucky, but the experience took its toll on him and he attempted suicide twice – only to survive this too.

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After the establishment of multi-party democracy in Malawi in 1994, all executions came to a halt.
Already in his 60s, he was the oldest person they’d ever had in Malawi’s prisons.

The land Byson used to farm is now overgrown. His wife died during the long years he was in prison and his six children have grown up and moved away.

He lives alone, but takes good care of his mother, now in her 80s.

“During my imprisonment, all I was worrying about was my mother… Being her first-born, I would do everything possible for her. Now that I’m back, I don’t let her go farming or do hard jobs. I have got other people to do the jobs for her. She doesn’t go to the field. I do it myself.”

His next project is to build her a new brick house.

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