House robbers sent to prison for 35 years

Walvis Bay resident Hans-Jörg Möller, who was fatally injured during a house robbery in June 2016, was killed in cold blood.

Judge Dinnah Usiku said this during the sentencing of the four men convicted of murdering Möller yesterday.

Usiku made the remark before she sent each of the four men – Panduleni Gotlieb (39), David Tashiya (37), David Shekundja (43) and Elly Hinaivali (38) – to prison for 35 years.

Compared to the “vicious and inhumane way” in which Möller and his wife were attacked in their home, the personal circumstances of the four men play an insignificant role, Usiku said during the sentencing in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility.

“In my view, what really carries considerable weight is that the accused persons have shown no remorse, none at all, for the terrible crimes they committed against innocent victims who were attacked in the privacy of their home, whilst sleeping,” Usiku said.

The four men were found guilty on six charges in July.

Usiku found that evidence heard during their trial proved that they broke into a house at Walvis Bay during the night of 16 to 17 June 2016, and attacked and robbed Möller (50) and his wife.

Möller was shot in the abdomen during the robbery and died in a hospital a day later.

His wife, Carol-Ann Möller, was seriously injured when she was assaulted during the robbery. She has told the court she sustained a brain injury that left her with a tremor from which she has not recovered.

During the four men’s trial, she identified Gotlieb as the person who fired the fatal shot that struck her husband.

A pistol found in Gotlieb’s possession at a police roadblock near Ondangwa on the evening of 17 June 2016 was later linked to the bullet that struck Möller.

Also during the trial, the court heard that Tashiya told a magistrate after his arrest that he had been informed by a friend that according to an employee of the Möllers, they had a large amount of money in a safe in their house.

Tashiya told the magistrate a plan was hatched to carry out a robbery during which the safe was to be stolen from the house, and that he went to the house with ‘Pandu’ and others.

After the robbery, the group drove back to Windhoek and dropped Gotlieb off at Okahandja, Tashiya related.

Usiku noted that the four men had been in custody for eight years before their trial was concluded, which she said is a significant period.

She also said the sentences imposed on Gotlieb, Tashiya, Shekundja and Hinaivali would undoubtedly have drastic repercussions on the lives of the people who depended on them, “but that is inevitable and unfortunately one of the consequences of a crime”.

Usiku sentenced them each to 26 years’ imprisonment on a charge of murder, a six-year jail term on a count of attempted murder, and three years in prison on a charge of housebreaking and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

The four accused were also sentenced on a one-year prison term on a charge of conspiring to commit housebreaking and robbery and two jail terms of six months for possession of a firearm and ammunition without a licence.

Usiku ordered that the sentences on those charges be served concurrently with the sentence on the count of housebreaking and robbery, resulting in an effective sentence of 35 years’ imprisonment.

She also declared the four men unfit to possess a firearm or ammunition for a period of three years after their release from prison.