A FARMWORKER who admitted he murdered his girlfriend in the Gobabis area four years ago and then set her body alight received a sentence of life imprisonment in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
In addition to sentencing Benedictus Koper (30) to life imprisonment on a charge of murder, acting judge Eileen Rakow also sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment on a count of rape, a five-year jail term for attempted murder, and five years in prison for defeating or obstructing the course of justice.
The practical effect of the sentence of life imprisonment is that Koper will have to serve 25 years’ imprisonment before he may become eligible to be considered for release on parole.
Rakow remarked during the sentencing that Koper, who has previously also been convicted twice of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, had been given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself after he was sentenced in those earlier cases, but chose not to make use of those chances. Koper has a tendency to behave violently, she also commented.
Koper admitted at the start of his trial in September last year that on 3 October 2016 he murdered his then girlfriend, Kalista Erastus (25), at a farm in the Gobabis district. He killed Erastus by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife, before he also struck her in the head with the blunt side of an axe, fracturing her skull in the process.
After the killing, he tried to destroy evidence of his crime by burning Erastus’ body.
The rape and attempted murder were committed at Karasburg on 27 November 2014.
During the sentencing, Rakow recounted that Koper also assaulted Erastus before the incident during which he murdered her.
He committed the murder by stabbing Erastus more than a dozen times with a knife. After that, he went to fetch an axe, returned to where he had left Erastus after the stabbing, and struck her with the blunt side of the axe. The blow to her head caused multiple skull fractures.
In respect of the rape, Rakow noted that Koper staged a violent attack on an older woman who knew and trusted him and had accommodated him in her house previously. During the attack, he strangled the woman before he raped her.
The judge added that Koper, who denied guilt on the rape charge, did not give any explanation for that offence or express remorse about it.
Defence lawyer Titus Ipumbu represented Koper during the last part of his trial. State advocate Hesekiel Iipinge prosecuted.
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