Murder mastermind gets 20 years in jail

NAMIBIANS have a right to be safe in their homes, without having their privacy violated by people like the three intruders who killed elderly Windhoek resident Koos Stoop during a house robbery in August 2009.

This was said by judge Alfred Siboleka when he sentenced the three people convicted of the murder of Stoop to effective prison terms of 20, 18 and 16 years respectively on Thursday last week.

Judge Siboleka sentenced Nelsiene Kauaria (34), who claimed to have been involved in a romantic relationship with Stoop at the time of his death, in the Windhoek High Court to an effective 20 years’ imprisonment. One of Kauaria’s co-accused, Erwin Katjingisiua (34), received an effective prison term of 18 years, while another co-accused, George Katjingisiua (36), was sentenced to an effective 16 years’ imprisonment.

Those were the sentences that Kauaria and the two Katjingisiuas received on a charge of murder.

Judge Siboleka also sentenced each of them to 12 years’ imprisonment on a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances and to a jail term of six years on a count of attempted robbery, but those sentences were ordered to be served concurrently with the sentences imposed on the murder charge.

Kauaria and the Katjingisiua brothers were convicted of having robbed and murdered the 78-year-old Gideon Johannes (‘Koos’) Stoop in his home in Cimbebasia in Windhoek during the night of 28 to 29 August 2009.

Stoop was attacked in his home after Kauaria recruited the two brothers to rob him.

During the robbery Erwin Katjingisiua stabbed Stoop in the chest with a knife and a screwdriver and then stuffed a piece of cloth deep down his throat, causing his death by suffocation. George Katjingisiua assisted him by helping to restrain Stoop, while Kauaria ransacked Stoop’s rented flat, looking for a bag of money that she had thought would be on the premises.

The three attackers left the flat with a meagre loot consisting of a television, hair clippers, and a car radio. They were arrested within three days after they had committed the robbery and murder.

Judge Siboleka found in his judgement that Erwin Katjingisiua killed Stoop, with George Katjingisiua assisting him as he committed the crime. The two men were both convicted of murder committed with a direct intention to kill.

Kauaria, who was present at the scene when Stoop was killed, did not physically take part in the murder, but was the principal organiser and facilitator of a plan to rob Stoop, judge Siboleka also found.

Erwin Katjingisiua denied all of the allegations against him until he made a surprise turnaround while testifying in his own defence near the end of August last year. Abandoning his previous denials, he told judge Siboleka that he had had a religious conversion while in jail, and testified that he, Kauaria and George Katjingisiua had indeed been responsible for the attack that claimed Stoop’s life.

Kauaria and the two Katjingisiuas went on trial in November 2012, when they denied guilt on all of the charges they were facing. Judge Siboleka convicted them on the three charges on 1 February this year.

The three accused were kept in custody for more than eight-and-a-half years before their trial was concluded. Judge Siboleka said during the sentencing that the long period they had spent in jail was one of the facts he took into account in deciding their sentences.

He also remarked that the conduct of Kauaria and the Katjingisiuas on the day of the fatal robbery was unacceptable, and that in his view society wanted to see offenders like them punished severely.

Deputy prosecutor general Antonia Verhoef represented the state during the trial. Kauaria was represented by defence lawyer Louis Karsten, while George and Erwin Katjingisiua were represented by Braam Cupido and Monty Karuaihe respectively.