Judge turns down jailed ex-MP’s release bid

FORMER National Assembly member Geoffrey Mwilima, who is serving a jail term over his involvement in a plot to secede the Zambezi region from Namibia, has failed in his latest bid to get a court order for his release from prison.

In a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court on Friday, judge Marlene Tommasi dismissed an application by Mwilima in which he asked the court to direct the minister of home affairs, immigration, safety and security to authorise his release within 12 hours after the court’s order.

The reasons for Tommasi’s decision have not been released yet.

Mwilima (67), who has been in jail for more than 23 years, near the end of January filed an urgent application at the High Court in which he asked the court to order the minister of home affairs, immigration, safety and security to authorise his release from prison on account of his medical condition.

In a second part of his application, which is still pending in court, Mwilima is asking the court to review and set aside home affairs, immigration, safety and security minister Albert Kawana’s refusal to authorise his release from prison on medical grounds.

In addition to that, Mwilima is also still asking the court to direct the minister to authorise his release within seven days after the court has made an order to that effect.

Mwilima has been jailed since August 1999, when he was arrested in the wake of surprise attacks that armed separatists carried out on government-linked targets at Katima Mulilo in the then Caprivi region.

Following a marathon trial on high treason and other charges, Mwilima was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment in December 2015, after he had been found guilty of having been a leading figure in a plot to secede the Zambezi region from Namibia through armed means.

The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal against his conviction, but reduced his sentence to 15 years’ imprisonment, in an appeal judgement delivered in December 2021.

According to documents filed at the High Court, the head of the Namibian Correctional Service’s healthcare services, Dr Tony Lumbidi, on 24 November last year submitted a report to Kawana in which he informed the minister that Mwilima suffers from diabetes and chronic kidney failure, and that both conditions are considered to be dangerous diseases.

Lumbidi added, though, that Mwilima has access to regular dialysis sessions and to his private doctors when needed, and concluded that his continued imprisonment would not be detrimental to his health.

The report on Mwilima’s medical condition was done after High Court judge Esi Schimming-Chase on 14 November last year ordered the medical officer of Windhoek Correctional Facility to determine, in terms of the Correctional Service Act, if Mwilima is suffering from a dangerous disease or whether his continued incarceration is detrimental to his health.

Mwilima is arguing that Kawana unlawfully failed or refused to authorise his release on medical grounds, and that his continued imprisonment is a threat to his life.

However, Kawana has informed the court in an affidavit that he has not received a recommendation for Mwilima’s release on medical grounds and that in terms of the Correctional Service Act, he cannot authorise Mwilima’s release until he has received such a recommendation.

In the absence of a recommendation from the medical officer, Mwilima remains imprisoned on the basis of a court order sentencing him to serve a particular prison sentence, Kawana says.