Extradition target Koch ties a Namibian knot

NAMIBIAN wedding bells rang for Hans Juergen Koch at his farm northeast of Tsumeb on Friday.

Koch married a former Magistrate who is now working for the Directorate of Legal Aid at Oshakati, Rachel Nathaniel, at his farm, La Rochelle, a month to the day after his release from Grootfontein Prison, where he had spent close to four years while fighting an attempt to extradite him to his native Germany. Koch has been living in Namibia since December 1999.Having made substantial investments in Namibia, he had received permanent residence status in the country in October 1997 already.Amongst his assets in Namibia is farm La Rochelle, which he has developed into an upmarket hunting and guest farm.La Rochelle, covering some ten thousand hectares of land, was valued at more than N$14,5 million at the time of Koch’s arrest at the request of the German government in October 2002.Koch’s arrest marked the start of what would become a more than four-year-long detention in prison while a request from the German government for his extradition to Germany, where he was wanted on criminal charges that included more than 200 counts of fraud that involved the equivalent of more than N$400 million, slowly wound its way through the Namibian court system.The extradition request was finally dealt a death blow in the Supreme Court on November 29 last year, when that court ruled that the request did not comply with several requirements set by Namibia’s Extradition Act.Koch has been living in Namibia since December 1999.Having made substantial investments in Namibia, he had received permanent residence status in the country in October 1997 already.Amongst his assets in Namibia is farm La Rochelle, which he has developed into an upmarket hunting and guest farm.La Rochelle, covering some ten thousand hectares of land, was valued at more than N$14,5 million at the time of Koch’s arrest at the request of the German government in October 2002.Koch’s arrest marked the start of what would become a more than four-year-long detention in prison while a request from the German government for his extradition to Germany, where he was wanted on criminal charges that included more than 200 counts of fraud that involved the equivalent of more than N$400 million, slowly wound its way through the Namibian court system.The extradition request was finally dealt a death blow in the Supreme Court on November 29 last year, when that court ruled that the request did not comply with several requirements set by Namibia’s Extradition Act.