Court clears Noa of rape charge

Trainee medical doctor Dennis Noa’s version of events after his arrest on a rape charge in April 2021 could not be rejected as false beyond reasonable doubt.

This is a key conclusion reached in an appeal judgement in which Noa’s conviction on a count of rape was overturned and he was found not guilty in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.

The appeal judgement comes nearly nine months after he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.

In the appeal judgement, written by judge Herman January, the court found it was not proven that Noa (30) committed a sexual act with a patient at Katutura Intermediate Hospital in Windhoek, where he was working as a medical intern, on 11 April 2021.

The court also found that, if a sexual act had been committed with the patient, it was not proven that Noa was the person who carried out the act.

Noa was not the only person who had an opportunity to commit a sexual act with the patient, January said in his judgement.

Judge Philanda Christiaan agreed with January’s judgement.

Noa was accused of raping an 18-year-old patient who was being treated in a head injury ward after a road accident that left him unconscious and immobile.

He pleaded not guilty to a charge of rape when his trial started before magistrate Victor Nyazo in the Windhoek Regional Court in April last year.

Nyazo found Noa guilty in January this year, and in February sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment.

When he testified in his own defence during the trial, Noa told the court that on the day of the alleged incident, he took the patient on his bed out of the head injury ward and handed the patient to a porter, who was supposed to take the patient for occupational therapy.

Noa said he later found the porter with the patient outside the head injury ward, and took the patient from him and returned him to the ward.

A physiotherapist who went to see the patient early that afternoon reported that he found an unused condom in its wrapper and paper towels lying next to the patient.

Observing that the patient’s anus was swollen and injured, the physiotherapist alerted nurses in the ward that he suspected the patient had been sexually violated.

Nyazo noted in his judgement that Noa was the last person known to have come into contact with the patient before the injuries were noticed.

He also noted that no one knew or saw the hospital porter that Noa said he had given the patient to, and from whom he later received the patient back.

Nyazo concluded that Noa was the only person who had a window of opportunity to sexually violate the patient.

However, January said in the appeal judgement that an unused condom “is not necessarily associated with a complete sexual act”.

January said Noa’s version of events was to an extent corroborated by evidence from the prosecution.

January also noted that one of the state’s witnesses corroborated Noa’s version that for between 30 and 45 minutes before the patient’s return to his ward he was not with the patient.

“This period was not accounted for. The onus was on the state to prove where the victim was and what happened to him during this period,” January said.

He added that this left doubt as to whether Noa was the only person with a window of opportunity to commit the alleged rape.

January also found that Noa’s version that he handed the patient to a hospital porter “is not fanciful and farfetched to simply be rejected as false beyond reasonable doubt”.

Lawyer Sisa Namandje represented Noa in his appeal.

State advocate Palmer Kumalo represented the prosecution during the trial and in the appeal.