Preacher gets trial date on child-abuse charges

AN EX-PASTOR of a Windhoek church is due to go on trial in March next year on four charges connected to allegations that he had sexually molested four under-age boys.

Former Rhenish Evangelical Lutheran Church pastor Joe Diergaardt’s trial is scheduled to start in the Windhoek Regional Court on 3 March. Diergaardt was informed of this when he made a first appearance in the regional court on Friday, a week after his case was transferred to that court.

Diergaardt is due to be prosecuted on three counts of rape and a charge of committing a sexual or indecent act with a child under the age of 16 years. He denied guilt on the charges during an appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura in July this year.

He has “from day one” said he was not guilty of the charges, his defence lawyer Garth Joseph, told The Namibian on Friday. Joseph did not want to elaborate on the allegations made against his client.

Diergaardt, who was attached to the Khomasdal congregation of the Rhenish Evangelical Lutheran Church in Windhoek, was arrested on 29 January this year on one charge of rape involving an 11-year-old boy who had allegedly been sexually assaulted during July 2019.

During Diergaardt’s second court appearance in February, three additional charges were added to his case. In those charges, it is alleged that he raped a second 11-year-old boy by committing a sexual act with him during 2019, that he also raped a third under-age boy by committing a sexual act with him, and that he sexually assaulted a fourth boy as well. After nearly six weeks in police custody, Diergaardt was granted bail in an amount of N$7 000 on 9 March.

During his court appearance before magistrate Victor Nyazo on Friday, Joseph informed the magistrate that Diergaardt has moved to the Dordabis area and asked to have one of his bail conditions changed so that he would have to report to the police at Dordabis, instead of in Windhoek, each Friday.

The magistrate changed the bail conditions as requested. When he was granted bail in March, Diergaardt was also ordered not to have any direct or indirect contact with the complainants in his matter.