Drowned man’s body surfaces

EIGHT days after jumping into the Goreangab Dam to escape the wrath of an angry mob, the body of a young theft suspect surfaced yesterday.

Police officers were called in yesterday, almost to the exact location where the man was last seen on Tuesday last week. Two men, who told The Namibian that they regularly fished in the dam, spotted the body floating in the water yesterday morning.”I asked him (his friend) if that guy who they said drowned had been found, and he said no.So I said ‘that’s him’,” said the witness, who gave his name only as Simon.The two men phoned a relative of the deceased, who they say then called the Police.The body was retrieved at about 14h00 yesterday, and family members are expected to identify it today.The deceased was chased for more than a kilometre last Tuesday by a group of angry community members, after he and an accomplice had allegedly robbed 16-year-old Sandré Louw of her cellphone as she was walking home from the Woermann & Brock shopping centre in Otjomuise.When the mob closed in on him, the suspect apparently threw the cellphone away before taking off his shirt and jumping into the dam.Police had been waiting for the body to surface, as the dam is too polluted for divers to search for bodies there.Two men, who told The Namibian that they regularly fished in the dam, spotted the body floating in the water yesterday morning.”I asked him (his friend) if that guy who they said drowned had been found, and he said no.So I said ‘that’s him’,” said the witness, who gave his name only as Simon.The two men phoned a relative of the deceased, who they say then called the Police.The body was retrieved at about 14h00 yesterday, and family members are expected to identify it today.The deceased was chased for more than a kilometre last Tuesday by a group of angry community members, after he and an accomplice had allegedly robbed 16-year-old Sandré Louw of her cellphone as she was walking home from the Woermann & Brock shopping centre in Otjomuise.When the mob closed in on him, the suspect apparently threw the cellphone away before taking off his shirt and jumping into the dam.Police had been waiting for the body to surface, as the dam is too polluted for divers to search for bodies there.