Fishrot: A trial that must get going

During 2024, the Fishrot fraud, corruption and racketeering case was a regular topic of news reports in Namibia.

As the year progressed, the media reported on various developments in the matter, which has been marked by delays and court proceedings on issues that prevented the trial from getting off to a proper start with the hearing of testimony on the merits of the charges against the 10 accused individuals and various corporate entities and trusts represented by them.

More than five years have now passed since six of the accused in the case – about the alleged corrupt use of Namibian fishing quotas worth hundreds of millions of Namibia dollars – were arrested near the end of November 2019. Those accused have also now spent more than five years in pretrial detention.

It remains to be seen whether the delays in the matter will continue during 2025 – but what is clear is that this is a case that has become a test for Namibia’s court system and the principle that a trial must take place within a reasonable period of time.

Already delayed for too long, the Fishrot trial must now get going and be steered to its conclusion.

With a new year lying ahead, we take a look back at some cases that made headlines in Namibia during 2024.

1 February: Oshakati High Court judge Duard Kesslau sentences Vensinlaus Mbangu Mutero (53), convicted of murdering his wife, Rosalia Shitshoni (33), and six-year-old son, Alexius Mutero, by shooting each of them in the head, to life imprisonment. Mutero committed the murders at Ndiyona, a village in the Kavango East region, during the evening of 25 September 2015.

13 March: The Supreme Court finds that a key figure in Namibia’s ill-fated Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Bank, Zimbabwean citizen Enock Kamushinda, and employees in the bank’s finance department, looted the SME Bank on a massive scale by stealing more than N$247 million from it before the Bank of Namibia took control of the bank in March 2017. The court orders that documents recording the large-scale looting of the SME Bank should be provided to the prosecutor general for action to be taken.

27 March: The Supreme Court, in an appeal judgement finds that music awards promoter Ernest Adjovi’s company Mundial Telecom SARL was correctly ordered by a High Court judge to repay N$23.5 million to the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB). Mundial Telecom had to refund N$23.5 million to the NTB after the company failed to stage the All Africa Kora Music Awards in Namibia eight years ago, appeal judge Dave Smuts says in the Supreme Court’s judgement.

28 March: Mass killer Sylvester Beukes, who murdered eight people at a farm in the Hardap region in March 2005, is sentenced to six terms of life imprisonment and a 30-year jail term in an appeal judgement delivered in the Supreme Court. The court sets aside the effective prison term of 105 years that Beukes received in November 2011, at the end of his trial in the Windhoek High Court.

29 April: In the Windhoek High Court, judge Christie Liebenberg sentences Ernst Lichtenstrasser (62) to two terms of life imprisonment. Lichtenstrasser was convicted of murdering Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (Nimt) executive director Eckhart Mueller (72) and his deputy, Heimo Hellwig (60), at Arandis in the Erongo region on 15 April 2019. During the sentencing, Liebenberg comments that Lichtenstrasser’s “violent, irrational and unpredictable behaviour” shows he is a danger to society.

21 June: An equal rights activist, Friedel Dausab, scores a legal victory against the government with a landmark judgement in which High Court judges Nate Ndauendapo, Shafimana Ueitele and Claudia Claasen decriminalise sexual acts between men. In their joint decision, the three judges declare the common law offences of sodomy and “unnatural sexual offences” unconstitutional and invalid. The offences differentiate between men and women and between gay men and heterosexual men, and this amounts to unfair discrimination and is unconstitutional, the court finds.

21 June: In the Oshakati High Court, judge Duard Kesslau sentences Nicolau Nghuumbwavali (32), who killed his physically disabled son, Joseph Nghuumbwavali (2), by burying him alive and causing him to suffocate, to life imprisonment on a charge of murder. Nghuumbwavali murdered his son at Onadhi, a village in the Ondangwa district, on 21 January 2020.

2 August: Judge Thomas Masuku declares in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court that assets linked to an investment scheme that was operated by activist Michael Amushelelo are forfeited to the state. Members of the public paid close to N$87 million into Amushelelo’s investment scheme, which is alleged to have been a fraudulent scam.

23 August: Swakopmund Regional Court magistrate Gaynor Poulton sentences Jandre Dippenaar, driver of a car involved in a road collision in which six people were killed near Henties Bay on 29 December 2015, to 15 years’ imprisonment on six counts of murder. Dippenaar is the first person to be convicted of murder, rather than culpable homicide, in Namibia in connection with a fatal road accident.

30 August: Zambezi region residents Walter Lupalwezi (42) and Ndozi Ndozi (30) – found guilty of kidnapping and robbing a tour guide Andi Maier and his girlfriend in Mudumu National Park in Zambezi in July 2015, before they murdered Maier by stabbing him with a knife – are sentenced to 35 and 25 years’ imprisonment, respectively. The two men are sentenced by judge Herman January in the Oshakati High Court.
5 September: Windhoek High Court judge Thomas Masuku declares the Electoral Commission of Namibia’s decision to cancel the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters’ registration as a political party as unlawful and sets it aside.

7 October: Ex-policeman Morgan Plaatjie (46), who murdered his former romantic partner, Yvette Louw (38), at her home at Keetmanshoop during the night of 25 to 26 June 2021 by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife, is sentenced by Windhoek High Court judge Dinnah Usiku to an effective prison term of 25 years.

14 October: After being in jail for more than 20 years, seven men convicted of taking part in an attempt to secede the Zambezi region from Namibia are sentenced by acting judge Petrus Unengu in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility to further prison terms ranging from five to 16 years. Progress Munuma (64), described as a leader of a separatist organisation that operated in the former Caprivi region between 1998 and the end of 2003, is sentenced to an effective prison term of 16 years. Five other accused – Shine Samulandela (56), Alex Mushakwa (62), Frederick Ntambilwa (62), Hoster Ntombo (61) and John Tembwe (57) – are each sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.

29 October: Titus Ipuleni Mundonga (40), who murdered his girlfriend in a knife attack in the Omusati region on 14 July 2020, is sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment at the end of his trial in the Oshakati High Court. Mundonga was determined to end the life of his girlfriend, Saima Peelenga (30), when he stabbed her 20 times with a knife in the presence of one of her three children, judge Duard Kesslau remarks during the sentencing.

14 November: Judge Claudia Claasen sentences a 54-year-old former police officer convicted of raping his 15-year-old daughter to an effective prison term of 25 years on charges of rape and incest. The man was convicted of raping his daughter in December 2009. During his trial in the Windhoek High Court, his daughter testified that he impregnated her three times while she was living with him in Angola, where he was working.

11 December: Hardap region resident Jeremias Nowaseb (41), convicted on charges of murder, rape and assault, is sentenced in the Windhoek High Court to an effective prison term of 41 years. Judge Dinnah Usiku convicted Nowaseb after finding that he assaulted, raped and murdered his girlfriend, Christina Kooper (22), at Aranos in the Hardap region on 31 October 2020. Kooper was killed when a rock weighing about 14.5 kilograms was thrown onto her head.