Judges consider appeal against intern doctor Noa’s rape conviction

Medical doctor Dennis Noa can expect to hear in November whether he has succeeded with an appeal against his conviction.

Noa is serving an eight-year prison term after being found guilty of rape.

Judges Herman January and Philanda Christiaan reserved their judgement on Noa’s appeal after hearing oral arguments in the Windhoek High Court on Friday. The judges postponed the delivery of their judgement to 8 November.

Noa (29) was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in February this year, a month after he was found guilty in the Windhoek Regional Court on a charge of rape.

He was accused of raping an 18-year-old patient at Katutura Intermediate Hospital in Windhoek on 11 April 2021. The patient was in the hospital as a result of a head injury that had left him in an unresponsive state.

Noa, who was an intern at the hospital at the time of the incident, denied guilt on the charge.

However, regional court magistrate Victor Nyazo found that Noa was the only person who had a window of opportunity to sexually violate the patient, and that the only conclusion that could be drawn from the evidence before the court was that he committed a sexual act with the patient under coercive circumstances.

During his trial, Noa told the court he took the patient on his bed from his ward and handed him to an unknown hospital porter who was supposed to take the patient to an occupational therapist. He said he later received the patient back from the porter and returned the patient on his bed to the ward. After the patient’s return, a physiotherapist found an unused condom and tissue paper lying next to the patient on his bed. When the patient was examined it was observed that he had an injury, swelling and discharge on his anal area.

During the appeal hearing on Friday, defence lawyer Sisa Namandje said it was “shocking” that the DNA test done on the discharge seen on the patient’s anal area was not produced as evidence during the trial.

Since the prosecution did not use the DNA test result as part of its evidence, an inference that the result did not implicate Noa must be drawn, Namandje argued.

He also argued there is a duty on the state to play open cards during a trial – which state advocate Palmer Kumalo said the prosecution did by disclosing all of its evidence to the defence. Namandje argued that the verdict was “indefensible” and that the evidence before the court did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Noa raped the patient. Kumalo said the state informed the defence it was not going to make use of the DNA report, because it did not advance the prosecution’s case, and the defence then also decided to not make use of the report.

With the report not before the trial court and the appeal court, the only inference to be drawn is that it did not assist both the state and the defence, Kumalo argued.

There was no evidence showing that Noa had been framed, Kumalo said.

Adding that all of the evidence placed before the trial court pointed to Noa and that his conviction was proper, Kumalo asked the court to dismiss the appeal.