Axe attacker convicted of mother’s murder

A YOUNG man who fatally injured his mother when he attacked her with an axe in the Karibib district nearly three years ago was convicted of murder and two other crimes in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

When he assaulted his mother with an axe at Otjimbingwe on 21 November 2013, Siegfried Uirab (27) intended to bring about her death, although he was acting with diminished criminal responsibility, judge Christie Liebenberg found when he convicted Uirab of murder, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and assault by threat.

Judge Liebenberg remarked that Uirab attacked his mother, Erika Uiras (63), with a lethal weapon, that he directed blows with the axe at her head, and that he inflicted the blows with substantial force.

Having attacked his mother, he also assaulted one of his sisters by hitting her against the head with the handle of the axe, and pursued one of his nieces, too, with the axe, the judge recounted some of the evidence before him. Earlier that day, Uirab had also made a threat that he would kill his niece.

Uirab admitted at the start of his trial in March this year that he assaulted his mother with an axe, but claimed he did not have any intention to kill her or inflict serious injuries when he did so. He further claimed in his plea explanation – and repeated the claims when he testified in his own defence – that he was under the control of a strange spirit when he launched the axe attack on his mother.

Erika Uiras suffered head injuries, including a skull fracture, as a result of the assault. She died in Katutura Intermediate Hospital in Windhoek two days after the attack.

Judge Liebenberg noted in his judgement that a psychiatrist who evaluated Uirab’s state of mind reported to the court that Uirab’s description of having been possessed by a spirit had matched typical features of cannabis intoxication.

Uirab told the court and the psychiatrist he had been smoking cannabis on the day of the incident. He also testified that a strange feeling arose in him, making him want to fight with his mother, after she had offered him some tobacco, which he accepted. He said he went to fetch an axe, went after his mother, and struck her about five times on the head with the blunt side of the head of the axe.

He further claimed the axe was under the control of a spirit which he tried to resist – an account that could only be described as bizarre and hard to believe, judge Liebenberg commented.

The court was informed that Uirab had been a patient in the psychiatric unit of Windhoek Central Hospital for two weeks about two months before the incident, after he had been referred to the unit with a diagnosis of substance-induced psychosis.

Uirab was fit to stand trial and had the ability to understand that what he was doing at the time of the attack on his mother was wrong, but his ability to act upon that understanding was reduced, psychiatrist Reinhardt Sieberhagen reported to the court.

The clinical evidence presented to the court clearly showed that Uirab acted with diminished criminal capacity, judge Liebenberg found.

Uirab has to return to court on 17 October for the start of the pre-sentencing phase of his trial. He has been kept in custody since his arrest a day after the axe attack on his mother.