Appeal petition keeps high treason retrial waiting

THE eight accused in the second Caprivi treason trial who have unsuccessfully tried to convince two High Court judges that they were abducted from Botswana to be charged and tried in Namibia have petitioned the Chief Justice in an attempt to be allowed to take their claims to the country’s highest court.

The eight accused are waiting to hear the outcome of a petition in which they are asking the Supreme Court to allow them to appeal against the ruling that the High Court has the jurisdiction to deal with their trial, their defence lawyer, Norman Tjombe, said when they appeared before Acting Judge Petrus Unengu in the Windhoek High Court on Wednesday.

Because the outcome of their petition is being awaited, their case has been postponed to 8 June.

Acting Judge Unengu dismissed the special plea raised by the eight accused in a judgement he delivered on 27 November last year.

The eight men had asked the court in their special plea not to permit the continuation of their prosecution because, according to them, they were unlawfully brought into the jurisdiction of the High Court of Namibia by agents or officials of the State.

Acting Judge Unengu found that the evidence before him showed the eight men were not abducted or kidnapped from Botswana and were not unlawfully brought into the jurisdiction of the High Court of Namibia by members of the Namibian Police or the Namibian Defence Force near the end of 2002 and in December 2003.

The evidence before him showed that officials from Botswana handed the accused over to the Namibian Police without an act of collusion from the Namibian authorities, the judge also found. After the delivery of his ruling, the eight asked to be given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against Acting Judge Unengu’s ruling. The judge dismissed their application for leave to appeal on 16 March.

The eight men and four co-accused raised a similar special plea when they first went on trial before Acting Judge John Manyarara in September 2005, but Judge Manyarara later dismissed that challenge to the High Court’s jurisdiction.

Ten of the accused were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms of either 30 or 32 years each at the end of that trial.

However, the Supreme Court set aside the convictions and sentences on appeal in July 2013 and sent the case back to the High Court for a retrial to take place, after finding that Acting Judge Manyarara should have agreed to a request for his recusal following his ruling on the jurisdiction challenge.

One of the 10 previously convicted men, Alex Mafwila Liswani, has in the meantime died.

The prosecution is alleging that the eight accused – Progress Munuma, Shine Samulandela, Manuel Makendano, Alex Mushakwa, Diamond Salufu, Hoster Ntombo, Boster Samuele, and John Tembwe – and one co-accused who has not challenged the court’s jurisdiction, Frederick Ntambilwa, took part in a conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the Namibian government in the former Caprivi region between September 1998 and December 2003.

Accused of having either been members of an armed secessionist organisation in the region, the Caprivi Liberation Army, or of having associated with the organisation, they are charged with counts of high treason, sedition, public violence, and the illegal importation and possession of weapons and ammunition.

The accused have by now all spent more than 11 years in jail. The prosecution is being represented by state advocate Neville Wamambo.