City cop kept waiting for bail ruling

WINDHOEK City Police spokesperson Fabian Amukwelele, who was arrested on a rape charge three weeks ago, will have to wait until the end of next week for the ruling on his application to be granted bail.

The ruling on Amukwelele’s application for bail was due to be delivered in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura on Wednesday, but was postponed to Friday next week after magistrate Shaatuna Kalla said she first wanted to be addressed on two issues she felt she had to take into account before making her decision on the application.

Amukwelele (37) is facing a charge of rape, with the prosecution alleging that he raped a woman in his flat in Windhoek’s Rocky Crest area on 11 January this year.

During the bail hearing, Amukwelele said he and the complainant in the matter had consensual sexual intercourse.

However, the court also heard that according to the complainant she was raped when Amukwelele ignored her requests for him to stop when he overpowered her in his flat.

She told a doctor on the day after the alleged incident that she had been raped, but did not at that stage want to lay a charge with the police, the court was told. Having discovered that she was pregnant, she laid a charge in March, and the pregnancy was legally terminated afterwards.

The issues on which magistrate Kalla asked to be addressed was whether Amukwelele would have contact with the complainant, who is also employed by the City of Windhoek, if released on bail, and which witness statements still needed to be taken by the police as part of their investigation.

Defence lawyer Mbushandje Ntinda told the magistrate Amukwelele and the complainant are attached to different departments, with their offices kilometres apart, and that they would as a result not have contact in their work setting.

Public prosecutor Rowan van Wyk informed the magistrate that the police have in the meantime recorded the two witness statements that still needed to be taken earlier during the bail hearing.

Amukwelele has been in police custody since his arrest on 8 April.