UK based Zim n’anga jailed for killing client during healing session with bute snuff

UK based Zimbabwean traditional healer “n’anga” who killed a woman last year after giving her too much bute snuff nicotine during a healing ritual, causing her “toxic trauma”, has been slapped with a two-year jail term.

Lyndon Nindi travelled to Nottingham on the 16th of February last year to treat a UK-based Zimbabwean woman Sophia Jekecha’s stomach problems.

Judge Gregory Dickinson QC said Nindi went beyond his “skill and understanding”.

Nindi, of Kinross Drive in Newcastle, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and administering a noxious substance.

He was jailed for two years on Friday.

Jekecha, 36 and like the defendant, born in Zimbabwe, had seen her GP about her stomach problems, but when they persisted her mother contacted Nindi, who acted as a traditional healer and was to be paid £150 plus travel expenses for treating her.

Jekecha had ingested bute snuff nasally, orally, and by having it rubbed into her skin.

She subsequently collapsed, and despite paramedics arriving she was pronounced dead shortly before 19:00 GMT.

Police found Jekecha died of nicotine poisoning and that she had an undiagnosed heart condition, which meant she would be unlikely to survive “a toxic challenge such as nicotine ingestion”.

bbc