40 year jail sentence for rapist of 8-year-old girls

AN ex-teacher who had been charged with raping two eight-year-old girls at Okahandja in October 2002, was made to bear the full brunt of the law this week.

For his crimes during a drunken hour in which he targeted two children to satisfy his sexual urges, the 38-year-old Festus Israel Veundjua Kaanjuka now faces the prospect of spending the next 40 years in jail. Magistrate Gert Retief sentenced Kaanjuka, a married father of five children, to two 20-year prison terms, of which no part was suspended or ordered to run concurrently, in the Windhoek Regional Court on Wednesday.Even a veteran Magistrate like Retief, who in his years on the bench had probably heard about the worst excesses that people committing crime can sometimes be capable of, appeared to be left stunned on Wednesday by the nature of the deeds that Kaanjuka carried out in a house at Okahandja during the night of October 12 to 13 2002.”I must say I am actually without words to describe the ugliness of this crime,” were the Magistrate’s first remarks when he commenced sentencing Kaanjuka after he had convicted him as charged.At the start of the trial proceedings on Wednesday, Kaanjuka told the court that he wanted to plead guilty, since he did not want to waste the court’s time.However, when questioned by the Magistrate about the reasons for his plea, Kaanjuka explained that he did not know the girls that he was alleged to have raped, and that because he was “very drunk” on the day in question, he could not dispute the allegation that he had raped the children.Magistrate Retief entered a plea of not guilty as a result of that explanation, and Public Prosecutor Belinda Wantenaar proceeded to call six witnesses to testify for the State.Kaanjuka, who appeared to have a noticeably good command of English and who had chosen to conduct his own defence without the assistance of a lawyer, had no questions for five of the witnesses, including the two children.In the course of the trial the court heard that the two girls, both eight years old at the time, were sleeping at the house where the rapes took place when Kaanjuka arrived there, returning from a shebeen where he and the house owner had been drinking.He lay down on the same bed as the children, and then ordered them to undress themselves.He first raped the one, and then did the same to the other girl.While he was raping the second child, the first was lying on the carpeted floor of the room, at Kaanjuka’s orders.After he had left, the children raised the alarm with a neighbour, who took them to hospital.Kaanjuka was arrested the same evening, on the northern side of Okahandja where he was apparently trying to hitch-hike to Windhoek.The neighbour who helped the girls told the court that he could see, when he found the children at his doorstep, that one of them was bleeding from her private parts.How she had bled at the scene of the rape became shockingly clear from a collection of Police photographs that were handed in as evidence in the trial.The photos show a large, blood-soaked spot on the carpet of the bedroom where the incident took place, large bloodstains on the sheet that was on the bed where the girls were sleeping, and, perhaps most disquieting, how the top of a bedside table was also almost entirely smeared with blood after the events that had taken place in that room.The first girl had to be admitted to hospital due to her injuries.”This is such an ugly incident.Two children eight years of age were brutally raped by you, the one after the other; while the one was bleeding – lying on the floor bleeding – you proceeded to rape the other one,” the Magistrate reminded Kaanjuka.He said there were no facts before the court on which he could even remotely consider imposing a sentence less that the 15-year term for such a rape that is prescribed by the Combating of Rape Act.Magistrate Retief added that he in fact had no hesitation in imposing the maximum sentence that his court could hand down for any crime – which is a jail term of twenty years, on each of the counts.”You are going to serve a period of forty years imprisonment.You may go,” the Magistrate sent Kaanjuka away.Kaanjuka was also brief in his address to the court before sentencing.He told the court that he was married, had five children, and that his wife was pregnant again.”I don’t want mercy from the court, because the court has found me guilty,” he said.Then he added: “All I want to say is just to the victims: you may forgive me, and your parents.If you forgive me, God will forgive me.”Magistrate Gert Retief sentenced Kaanjuka, a married father of five children, to two 20-year prison terms, of which no part was suspended or ordered to run concurrently, in the Windhoek Regional Court on Wednesday.Even a veteran Magistrate like Retief, who in his years on the bench had probably heard about the worst excesses that people committing crime can sometimes be capable of, appeared to be left stunned on Wednesday by the nature of the deeds that Kaanjuka carried out in a house at Okahandja during the night of October 12 to 13 2002.”I must say I am actually without words to describe the ugliness of this crime,” were the Magistrate’s first remarks when he commenced sentencing Kaanjuka after he had convicted him as charged.At the start of the trial proceedings on Wednesday, Kaanjuka told the court that he wanted to plead guilty, since he did not want to waste the court’s time.However, when questioned by the Magistrate about the reasons for his plea, Kaanjuka explained that he did not know the girls that he was alleged to have raped, and that because he was “very drunk” on the day in question, he could not dispute the allegation that he had raped the children.Magistrate Retief entered a plea of not guilty as a result of that explanation, and Public Prosecutor Belinda Wantenaar proceeded to call six witnesses to testify for the State.Kaanjuka, who appeared to have a noticeably good command of English and who had chosen to conduct his own defence without the assistance of a lawyer, had no questions for five of the witnesses, including the two children.In the course of the trial the court heard that the two girls, both eight years old at the time, were sleeping at the house where the rapes took place when Kaanjuka arrived there, returning from a shebeen where he and the house owner had been drinking.He lay down on the same bed as the children, and then ordered them to undress themselves.He first raped the one, and then did the same to the other girl.While he was raping the second child, the first was lying on the carpeted floor of the room, at Kaanjuka’s orders.After he had left, the children raised the alarm with a neighbour, who took them to hospital.Kaanjuka was arrested the same evening, on the northern side of Okahandja where he was apparently trying to hitch-hike to Windhoek.The neighbour who helped the girls told the court that he could see, when he found the children at his doorstep, that one of them was bleeding from her private parts.How she had bled at the scene of the rape became shockingly clear from a collection of Police photographs that were handed in as evidence in the trial.The photos show a large, blood-soaked spot on the carpet of the bedroom where the incident took place, large bloodstains on the sheet that was on the bed where the girls were sleeping, and, perhaps most disquieting, how the top of a bedside table was also almost entirely smeared with blood after the events that had taken place in that room.The first girl had to be admitted to hospital due to her injuries.”This is such an ugly incident.Two children eight years of age were brutally raped by you, the one after the other; while the one was bleeding – lying on the floor bleeding – you proceeded to rape the other one,” the Magistrate reminded Kaanjuka.He said there were no facts before the court on which he could even remotely consider imposing a sentence less that the 15-year term for such a rape that is prescribed by the Combating of Rape Act.Magistrate Retief added that he in fact had no hesitation in imposing the maximum sentence that his court could hand down for any crime – which is a jail term of twenty years, on each of the counts.”You are going to serve a period of forty years imprisonment.You may go,” the Magistrate sent Kaanjuka away.Kaanjuka was also brief in his address to the court before sentencing.He told the court that he was married, had five children, and that his wife was pregnant again.”I don’t want mercy from the court, because the court has found me guilty,” he said.Then he added: “All I want to say is just to the victims: you may forgive me, and your parents.If you forgive me, God will forgive me.”