Life-term prisoner Florin loses release appeal

Long-term prison inmate Thomas Florin has lost a Supreme Court appeal through which he tried to win his release after more than 26 years in jail.

Florin’s appeal was dismissed on Monday, with three judges of the Supreme Court finding that the court in 2016 already dealt with and ruled against his argument that he is serving his term of life imprisonment under the 1959 Prisons Act.

Serving his sentence under the 1959 Prisons Act would have given Florin the right to be considered for release on parole after serving 10 years of his sentence.

However, the Supreme Court ruled, in a judgement delivered in August 2016, that life-term prisoners sentenced after the 1959 law was repealed in August 1999 are eligible to be considered for release on parole only after they have served a period of at least 25 years in prison.

Florin (58), who is a citizen of Germany, was sentenced in December 1999, after he had been convicted of murdering his wife, Monika Florin (30), in June 1998 and thereafter cutting up her body, stripping it of its flesh, cooking the remains and hiding her skeleton in the roof space of their house at Swakopmund.

After being convicted on charges including counts of murder and violating a dead human body, Florin was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the sentencing judge recommending to the prison authorities that he should not be released before he had served at least 15 years’ imprisonment.

In the Supreme Court’s judgement on Monday, acting judge of appeal Dave Smuts noted that Florin has by now served a period of more than 25 years in prison, and is eligible to be considered for release in terms of the regulations issued under the Correctional Service Act of 2012, which replaced the 1998 Prisons Act.

The National Release Board informed Florin in a letter in May 2022 that non-Namibian offenders in Namibian prisons cannot be considered for release on full parole unless they have permanent residence status in Namibia.

Given his status as a foreigner without permanent residence in Namibia, Florin would only be eligible for release on probation, and not on parole, the National Release Board informed him.

In an application filed at the Windhoek High Court in January 2023, Florin asked the court to declare that he is serving his sentence under the Prisons Act of 1959, and also to declare that he is immediately eligible to be considered for release on parole.

Florin also complained that the National Release Board’s differentiation between Namibian and non-Namibian prisoners when considering whether to release an inmate on parole amounted to unfair discrimination.

Florin’s application in the High Court was dismissed in April last year, when judge Boas Usiku found that Florin is serving his sentence under the 1998 Prisons Act, which applied on the date he was sentenced, as was found by the Supreme Court in August 2016 as well.

Smuts noted in the appeal judgement this week that according to the prison authorities, eligibility to an early release on parole and on probation is the same in practice and effect.

According to a directive issued by the commissioner general of the Namibian Correctional Service, a foreign national without the right to reside in Namibia would be deported from Namibia once released from prison, and unlike prisoners released on parole, it would not be possible for the prison authorities to continue to monitor and supervise the person once they have been released and deported.

“The differentiation contemplated by the directive and as applied by the [National Release] Board is thus rationally connected to a legitimate objective,” Smuts said, dismissing the claim that it amounts to unfair discrimination.

Acting judges of appeal Theo Frank and Esi Schimming-Chase agreed with Smuts’ judgement.