Court denies request to split Fishrot trial, plea proceedings to resume in December

An application for a separation of the Fishrot fraud, corruption and racketeering trial into two separate trials has failed.

Acting judge Moses Chinhengo dismissed the application for a separation of trials in a judgement delivered in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility on Tuesday.

Former minister of justice and attorney general Sacky Shanghala and three other accused in the Fishrot case – James Hatuikulipi, Ricardo Gustavo and Pius Mwatelulo – applied for a separation of trials, claiming they need more time to make efforts to get legal representation for themselves while the trial of their co-accused, who are represented by defence lawyers, can then continue separately.

Chinhengo noted in his judgement that if Shanghala, Hatuikulipi, Gustavo and Mwatelulo cannot secure legal representation, they can bring an application in the High Court to have the Directorate of Legal Aid ordered to provide them with state-funded legal aid. They have chosen not to pursue such an application, though.

Chinhengo also said the four accused have been given reasonable time to obtain legal representation since their lawyers announced their withdrawal from their case about a year ago.

The four accused have had time since early December last year to make arrangements for legal representation, but they have instead been occupied with other applications during the past year, Chinhengo remarked.

He said plea proceedings in the matter must now continue.

The plea proceedings started in early December last year and have been on hold since an ultimately unsuccessful application for Chinhengo to step down from the case interrupted the taking of pleas on 13 December last year.

At the end of his judgement, Chinhengo directed the prosecutors, defence lawyers and unrepresented accused involved in the matter to have a discussion to agree on what date the plea proceedings can continue.

He added that he wants the taking of pleas to be completed by around 10 December, and that the trial can be postponed after that for the hearing of evidence to start.

Chinhengo has so far recorded pleas on four of the 42 charges faced by the 10 individual accused in the matter. Pleas of not guilty were noted on all four charges.

The charges are based on allegations that the accused committed fraud, corruption, racketeering and other offences between December 2011 and November 2019, by helping the Icelandic fishing company group Samherji get access to Namibian fishing quotas.