High Court trial for alleged child killer

A WINDHOEK man charged with the murder of a four-year-old boy whom he had raised as his own child made a first pretrial appearance in the High Court, where he is due to stand trial, yesterday.

Simon Muno Reeves Dawid (46) appeared before Windhoek High Court judge Christie Liebenberg on a charge of murder two years after the boy whom he had raised as his son, Athanosius Katholo Reeves Simbo, was killed in his house in Katutura in Windhoek.

Dawid’s case was postponed to 21 September, when a second pretrial hearing is scheduled to take place.

He spent close to two years in police custody after Simbo was killed in his house on 5 July 2015 – about a month before he would have turned five years of age.

The prosecution is alleging that the boy suffered fatal injuries when he was hit and thrown against a wall and the floor of Dawid’s home.

Dawid had been concerned about rumours that he was not Simbo’s biological father before the assault on the boy took place, it is also alleged in the indictment summarising the charge on which Dawid will have to stand trial.

In the indictment, the state is alleging that Dawid and Simbo’s mother were in a relationship at the time of his birth in August 2010, and that Simbo’s mother told Dawid he was the boy’s father. When the relationship ended in 2012, Simbo remained in Dawid’s care, and he continued to raise the boy as his own child.

Rumours that Dawid was not Simbo’s biological father were making the rounds in their community, though, and on 5 July 2015, Dawid returned home after visiting friends, locked himself and Simbo in their home, and carried out a deadly assault on the boy, the prosecution is charging.

Genetic tests done after the killing confirmed the rumours about Simbo’s paternity, it is also stated in the indictment. The DNA tests showed that Simbo had not been fathered by Dawid.

Shocked relatives of Dawid told after his arrest that he and Simbo had been inseparable. “Whenever you see Simon, you see his son,” one of the relatives was reported to have said.

Dawid denied guilt on a charge of murder during an appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura in March this year.

He had been in police custody until he was granted bail in an amount of N$4 000 in March.

Dawid remains free on bail, after judge Liebenberg directed yesterday that his defence lawyer, Afrika Jantjies, should by 14 September file his reply to a set of questions through which the prosecution is trying to get an outline of his response to the allegations against him.