Four guilty after trial over deadly robbery

Four robbers are heading for a presentence hearing in the High Court after being found guilty on six charges, including a count of murder, on Monday.

The men were prosecuted in connection with a fatal armed robbery at Walvis Bay eight years ago.

Judge Dinnah Usiku convicted the four men – Panduleni Gotlieb, David Tashiya, David Shekundja and Elly Hinaivali – at the end of a lengthy judgement delivered in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility.

Usiku found that the four men jointly carried out an armed robbery during which a Walvis Bay resident, Hans-Jörg Möller (50), was fatally shot in his home at the harbour town during the night of 16 to 17 June 2016.

Möller was shot in the abdomen during the robbery. He died in a hospital a day later.

The four men also attempted to murder Möller’s wife, Carol-Ann, by assaulting and seriously injuring her during the robbery, the judge found.

A fifth accused who stood trial before Usiku, Malakia Shiweda, was acquitted, with Usiku saying she was persuaded by the explanation he gave to the court in his own defence.

Shiweda, who was represented by defence lawyer Joseph Andreas, told the court he was at Walvis Bay on the evening of 16 June 2016, that his four co-accused were also at the town, and that he drove with them back to Windhoek in the early hours of the next morning.

He said he was not present at the house where the robbery took place, but received a phone call to pick up his four co-accused at the town late at night.

Gotlieb, Shekundja and Hinaivali denied that they were at Walvis Bay when the robbery took place at the Möllers’ home.
Usiku rejected their alibis though.

She noted in her judgement that cellphone records showed Gotlieb’s phone was picked up on the phone network at Walvis Bay on 16 June 2016 and at Okahandja early the next morning.

A relative of Tashiya also testified during the trial that Tashiya, Shekundja and Hinaivali were at her house at Walvis Bay, where she served them a meal, on 16 June 2016.

Usiku said after his arrest Tashiya told a magistrate he had been informed by a friend that, according to an employee of the Möllers, they had a large amount of money in a safe in their house.

Tashiya also told the magistrate a plan was hatched to carry out a robbery during which the safe was to be stolen from the house, and that he went to the house with ‘Pandu’ and others.

After the robbery, the group drove back to Windhoek and dropped Gotlieb off at Okahandja, Tashiya related.

A pistol found in Gotlieb’s possession at a police roadblock near Ondangwa on the evening of 17 June 2016 was later linked to the bullet that struck Möller when he was shot during the robbery.

Foreign currency, two passport photos of Möller’s two daughters and a tyre lever and a screwdriver, described as potential housebreaking instruments, were also found in Gotlieb’s possession, while personal documents that belonged to Hans-Jörg Möller were found at Okahandja on the day after the robbery.

Usiku concluded that Gotlieb, Tashiya, Shekundja and Hinaivali conspired to carry out a robbery at the Möllers’ house.

She found the four men guilty on charges of murder, attempted murder, housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery with aggravating circumstances, conspiring to commit housebreaking and robbery, and possession of a firearm and ammunition without a licence.

The four men, who have been held in custody for the past eight years, are due to return to court on Monday next week, for a date for a presentence hearing to be decided.