A MAXIM tattooed on the leg of Keetmanshoop strangler Gregorius Kido got an added ring of truth to it yesterday, when he was sentenced to an effective 31-year prison term for murder and assault.
True to the words tattooed on Kido’s lower left leg, the deeds he was responsible for during the night of 31 January to 1 February last year came back to haunt him in the form of the long prison term that Judge Naomi Shivute handed to him.
The tattoo on Kido’s leg reads: “Thing’s that we do 2day may hunt us 2morrow” (sic). Indeed so, Kido’s sentencing demonstrated.
Judge Shivute sentenced Kido to 30 years’ imprisonment on a charge of murder and to an additional one-year jail term on a count of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. On further charges of theft and assault by threat, he was sentenced to prison terms of six months and three months respectively, with these sentences ordered to be served concurrently with the sentences on the first two charges.
Judge Shivute told Kido (32) that he “is a disturbingly dangerous element that has no moral compass and therefore needs to be removed from society”.
It is unfortunate that Kido’s three children will have to grow up in the absence of their father, but he is solely responsible for that state of affairs, she said.
Kido, who was working at a bakery at Keetmanshoop before his arrest, pleaded guilty to the four charges on Tuesday last week.
He admitted that he strangled the 39-year-old Petrina Isaak, who was the sister of his former long-term girlfriend, at Keetmanshoop during the night of 31 January to 1 February last year.
He strangled Isaaks with his bare hands, Kido informed the court in a plea explanation.
He also admitted that he assaulted her by hitting and kicking her before he strangled her.
His explanation for the attack on Isaak was that he did so in anger after she had refused to give him information about the whereabouts of her sister, Elfriede Fisch.
Isaak was on her way home on foot when she encountered Kido and was murdered. Kido also admitted that he stole a cellphone from her.
About three hours after the murder, Kido found Fisch in the company of a male companion, the court also heard. Kido again resorted to the use of violence when he assaulted Fisch by repeatedly punching and kicking her.
He also admitted that he was guilty of assault by threat, having threatened to assault Fisch’s male friend by throwing a stone at him.
Kido and Fisch had been involved in a long-term relationship from which three children were born, the court heard. They were separated at the time of the murder after Fisch had obtained an interim domestic violence protection order against him.
Fisch testified before Judge Shivute last week that Kido assaulted her, also in front of their children, while they were involved in a relationship. She said she feared for her own life in the event that Kido is released from prison one day, and asked the court for protection, the judge recounted.
Judge Shivute commented that Kido attacked Isaak “ferociously by subjecting her to physical violence until he ended her life in cold blood”.
“It was an unprovoked and cowardly attack on a defenceless woman,” she stated.
Murder is a serious crime and relatively prevalent in Namibia, she said. As such, people convicted of murder undoubtedly deserve lengthy sentences of imprisonment, she said.
Defence lawyer Willem Visser represented Kido while the Deputy Prosecutor General Anita Meyer represented the State.
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