A magistrate’s court in Limbe, Blantyre, sentenced 19-year-old Mussa John to eight years in prison for illegally possessing Indian hemp, the local name for cannabis, weighing 134 kilograms.[1] Limbe police detectives acting on a tip searched his house on 15 June 2022 and found 78 plastic bags of the drug, and he was arrested and charged with possessing Indian hemp without a licence.[1] He pleaded guilty to an offence under Regulation 4(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Regulations and the Dangerous Drugs Act, and Senior Resident Magistrate Byson Masonga sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment with hard labour.[1] The prosecutor argued that the quantity was huge despite John being a first offender, and the magistrate set aside his plea for leniency as a young man supporting parents and siblings.[1]

The sentence drew national anger because a prominent business executive, Castel Malawi chief executive Herve Milhade, had reportedly been fined rather than jailed for cultivating the plant in his compound.[2] The High Court in Blantyre opened a review of the case on 12 July 2022, and the state conceded the eight-year term was excessive while asking only that it be reduced.[3] His lawyers argued he was not in possession of the drug, that it was found at a friend’s house, that he had no lawyer in the magistrate’s court and that he was 17 rather than 19.[3]

On 1 September 2022 High Court judge Vikochi Chima upheld the conviction but cut the sentence to three years, and defence lawyers said they would appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal.[4] His sentence became the flashpoint for protests in Malawi in July 2022, when police in Lilongwe arrested 75 people, including human rights campaigners, during demonstrations against what they called selective justice by the judiciary.[2]