New twist in Walvis murder case

THE killing of Walvis Bay restaurant owner and former newspaper editor, Awie Brand, a year ago was sparked by an unwanted sexual advance that Brand made on the young man accused of murdering him, it was claimed in the High Court in Windhoek this week.

‘The deceased tried to have sexual intercourse with me, and I refused,’ murder suspect Ephraim Kariko told Acting Judge Gerson Hinda on Monday as he testified in the High Court in support of an application to be released on bail.Speaking so softly that he had to be asked repeatedly to raise his voice to be heard better, Kariko (23) gave that answer when his lawyer, Jan Wessels, asked him to explain the circumstances that sparked a fight that Kariko claimed ended in Brand’s death.On the morning of June 21 last year, Brand’s body was found in a storeroom at the back of the restaurant that he was running at Walvis Bay after a more than 30-year career as a newspaperman at the Namib Times.Brand’s body was partly naked when he was found.From the storeroom, a trail of smeared blood led back to the restaurant.Inside, the 58-year-old Brand’s trousers were found lying on a couch in an area of the eating-place that had been turned into a bloody and disorderly scene.Brand is alleged to have been bludgeoned to death with a wooden club.Kariko was arrested in Windhoek on June 22 last year. He was kept in Police custody until he was granted bail of N$5 000 in the Walvis Bay Magistrate’s Court on July 23 last year, without a formal bail hearing having taken place.With his case having been transferred to the Swakopmund Regional Court in the meantime, Kariko made an appearance in that court on Monday last week. He was informed that the Prosecutor General had decided to withdraw the charges against him – but then he was immediately rearrested, taken back to Walvis Bay for an appearance in the town’s Magistrate’s Court, and told that the PG had decided instead that his case should be transferred to the High Court.In terms of the Criminal Procedure Act, a case cannot be transferred from the Regional Court to the High Court or back to a Magistrate’s Court, which is the reason why the charge was withdrawn instead and Kariko again arrested.The upshot of these events was that Kariko was no longer free on bail.On Monday, he launched a bail application in the High Court.The bail hearing ended yesterday with Acting Judge Hinda ruling that in his opinion the interests of justice would not be threatened if Kariko was to be let out of custody on bail.Acting Judge Hinda granted Kariko bail in an amount of N$10 000, but tightened the previous bail conditions under which he had been free by ruling that Kariko has to report to the Katutura Police Station every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning and late afternoon – previously he had to report to the Police only every Monday and Friday – while he may also not interfere with State witnesses in his case or leave the district of Windhoek without Police permission.Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef, citing the seriousness of the charges that Kariko is facing and the likelihood that he may be sent to prison for a long time if he is convicted, opposed the request to be released on bail.Kariko told the court that he was employed by Brand.On questions from Wessels he confirmed that on June 20 an ‘incident’ had taken place between him and Brand at the latter’s restaurant, called ‘Die Restaurant’.’We were fighting,’ Kariko said.He said this happened at about 22h00, when he and Brand were alone in the restaurant after it had closed for the night.Kariko claimed Brand made a sexual proposition to him.He had never been in such a situation before, and was ‘really freaked out’, Kariko said.He was fighting off Brand, who at one point was also strangling him, when he reached out and hit Brand with an object that he got hold of, Kariko alleged.He hit Brand on his head, ‘two or three times’, Kariko said.He pushed Brand away from him, and Brand then fell with his head against a wall, Kariko claimed.He further claimed that when he left the scene, Brand was still alive and breathing.However, according to Sergeant Erastus Aupa, the Police officer who investigated the case, Kariko told the Police on the day of his arrest that when Brand appeared to be dead or no longer breathing, he dragged Brand’s body to the storeroom. Kariko now denies this.Kariko admitted this week that he took Brand’s cell phone and car, as well as some money from the restaurant, and then drove to Windhoek. Later in the day after his arrival in the city he told his mother that he had been involved in a fight with someone at Walvis Bay and that he left the person laying at the scene, the court was told. According to Kariko’s mother, he was shivering and crying and ‘looked terrible’ when he told her about that.The next day, Kariko’s family had a meeting and decided that he should hand himself over to the police, the court heard.By then, Kariko had given the clothes that he was wearing, and which had blood stains on it, to his brother to throw away. The clothing was also handed over to the Police, though.Kariko now has to make a pre-trial appearance in the High Court on July 30.