Jail terms reduced as treason appeal fails

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal against their convictions of 27 men found guilty in the marathon main Caprivi high treason trial in 2015.

In a judgement delivered today, the appeal court concluded that then High Court judge Elton Hoff correctly convicted the 27 men on a charge of high treason, nine counts of murder and 91 counts of attempted murder in September 2015.

The court changed the sentences which Hoff imposed at the end of the trial in December 2015, though, by reducing the effective sentences by three years.

Hoff sentenced five leaders of a failed attempt to secede the former Caprivi region from Namibia to effective prison terms of 18 years each. Those sentences have now been reduced to 15 years.

The effective jail terms of 15 years which Hoff handed to 13 of the convicted men, whom he found to have been soldiers of the separatist Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA) who carried out deadly attacks on targets at Katima Mulilo in the early morning hours of 2 August 1999, have now been reduced to 12 years each.

Effective prison terms of ten years imposed on eight of the convicted men who were found to have been supporters of a plan to take up arms in a bid to secede Caprivi from Namibia, and on one of the CLA attackers, Adour Mutalife Chika, who was a youthful 19 years of age at the time of the attacks and his arrest, were also reduced by three years, to an effective seven years’ imprisonment.

More details in our next edition.