In our courts

By - Omundumagazine January 11, 2022 Comments (0) 3 Mins Read

02 February 2021

Jan Uamunika (41) had claimed that he killed Joseph Barth (69) in self defence.
They had returned to a farm where he worked for Barth when, during an argument, he shot the deceased in both legs, He proceeded to stab and hit him on the head with unknown objects. Jugde Eileen Rakow found him guilty in August 2017 and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

He wants to appeal his case.

26 February 2021

How the court found that Jonny Ryno Diergaardt killed his former girlfriend Tifanny Lewin (22) is still stuff for the horror movies. Her son was present and crying as he stabbed her, stabbed her again, and again until a knife’s blade broke. Briefly it stopped, but he got another knife and stabbed Lewin again in front of the child. When it finally stopped, she had been stabbed 27 times and a knife was stuck in her skull. And in November 2019, the High Court in Windhoek sentenced Diergaardt (36) to 30-years in prison for what he did.

He wants to appeal. Diergaardt returned to court last month hoping for a State-funded lawyer to appeal. We do not know whether it would be a wholesale appeal or confined to the trial or sentence.

03 March 21

On 21 January 2018, Shane Rittmann was shot and killed at her mother’s house in Katutura. Johannes Neuaka was arrest- ed since and several stories about her death and the couple’s relationship have come out. Did Neuaka, a former military paramedic kill his lover? His trial starts on 3 March and it would be up to his defence lawyer to show that did not ask her to choose between her life and taking a protection order against him four-days before the fatal shot went off.

8 March 21

Marcus Thomas and Kevan Townsend return to court for their trial to continue before Judge Christie Liebenberg. Since their arrests on 11 January 2011, initially on drug and weapons violations, and later for Andre Heckmair’s murder, the Americans had tried everything possible to delay the start of their trial. They fired a series of law- yers and applied for new ones, they brought bail applica- tions and Thomas even asked to be found crazy. The last attempt was to ask the judge presiding over the case to recuse himself.

14 March 21

Progress Munuma and others have been disputing the Namibian courts’ authority to put them on trial. They had asked on several occasions, whether a person abducted from another country can be put on trial. In the case of Alex Mushakwa and Diamond Salufu, the courts find that they had no jurisdiction over them. But for the rest, it appears to the courts as though Botswana had deported them into Namibia’s jurisdiction when they were arrested. They gave it another go and asked to be freed on this date.

A 28-year-old woman and her brother charged with the murder of 22-year-old Shannon Wasserfall return to the Walvis Bay Magistrate’s Court. Prosecutor Mag- gy Lotto charged Azaan Madisia and her brother Steven Mulundu with murder and defeating justice last October. The siblings were charged after the remains of Wasser- fall were discovered buried in a shallow grave, six-months after she had gone miss- ing. Police received a tip by text message and followed it to the grave.