ONE of three men charged with the murder of an elderly couple at a farm in southern Namibia in February 2018 was told by the Windhoek High Court on Thursday that he will not be granted bail.
Judge Claudia Claasen refused an application by Julius Frederick Arndt (43) to be granted bail after finding that the state appeared to have a strong case against him and that it would not be in the interest of the public or of the administration of justice to release him on bail.
Arndt and two co-accused, Andries Afrikaner (39) and Johannes Christiaan (38), are due to be prosecuted in the High Court over the murder of farming couple Sarie and Giel Botma, who were aged 80 and 79, respectively, when they were killed during a burglary and robbery at the farm Lindeshof in the Koës area during the night of 2 to 3 February 2018.
The court heard that Arndt was wearing bloodstained clothes and had a firearm belonging to the murdered couple in his possession when he was caught a day after the double slaying, driving a vehicle stolen from the Botmas’ farm.
THE man accused of murdering a senior employee of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria in an office shooting in Windhoek in January last year is due to undergo a period of psychiatric evaluation.
Judge Christie Liebenberg ordered on Thursday that Simataa Simasiku (34) should be examined by two psychiatrists to establish if he is mentally fit to be tried and be held accountable for his actions at the time he allegedly committed the crimes with which he is charged.
The judge made this order after defence lawyer Vernon Lutibezi informed him he had difficulties getting proper instructions from Simasiku, who was telling him about a hack of his work computer which was transmitting through his mind and about N$90 million that he said had been placed in his bank account by the Global Fund, where he had been employed.
Simasiku is charged with having murdered a former colleague, Global Fund director Sarah Mwilima (51), in a shooting in the City Centre building in Windhoek on 28 January last year, and attempting to murder another employee of the fund who was seriously injured when she was shot in the neck during the same incident.
He is being kept in custody.
THE case in which a former financial manager of the Windhoek International School is charged with fraud involving N$3,3 million was removed from the roll of the Windhoek High Court on Thursday.
The case was removed from the court roll because the accused in the matter, Maria Johanna Coetzee (48), has fled to South Africa.
Judge Christie Liebenberg was informed that Coetzee has been traced to Pretoria, and that the police have been in contact with Interpol in an effort to arrange to have her returned to Namibia.
A warrant for Coetzee’s arrest was issued when she failed to attend a pretrial hearing in the High Court in May this year.
Coetzee is due to stand trial on 18 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, and one charge of money laundering. The state is alleging that she defrauded the school by transferring N$2,8 million from its bank account to three bank accounts in her own name between March and October 2018, and also attempting to transfer a further N$0,5 million to her accounts. She was released on bail of N$10 000 in March last year. – Compiled by Werner Menges
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