By Mbatjiua Ngavirue
WINDHOEK
Mystery surrounds a daring burglary at the Katutura Magistrates’ Courts in the early hours of Friday morning.
There is conflicting information available on the break-in, but the known facts raise more questions than answers.
Sources at the Katutura Magistrates’ Courts, who prefer to remain anonymous, say there is strong evidence the burglary was an inside job.
These sources say there is no evidence of anyone breaking in from outside, with all the evidence pointing towards people remaining in the building after the courthouse closed on Thursday afternoon.
The thieves apparently tried to make it look like an ordinary burglary, but evidence suggests that someone might have been trying to destroy evidence in a specific criminal case.
The burglars entered the acting Chief Magistrate’s office through his receptionist office’s sliding glass window.
They seemed to know the exact location of the cabinet where the acting Chief Magistrate keeps all keys to the court building.
Many keys are said to be missing and by Friday morning officials could still not establish whether the keys to the holding cells were safe.
The burglars rifled through drawers in both the office of the Prosecutor to D Court and the acting Chief Magistrate, where they also destroyed a number of tapes of court proceedings.
Residents living adjacent to the courthouse say the shrill burglar alarm went off at 12h50.
Court officials, however, say the alarm only sounded at 04h00, with members of the City Police arriving at 06h00 – by which time the thieves had fled the scene.
A member of the Special Field Force armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle guarded the premises on the fateful night.
The officer allegedly failed to take action between 12h50 and 06h00 when the City Police arrived, according to inside sources at the courthouse, who prefer to remain anonymous.
The guard allegedly made no effort to report the sharp blare of the alarm system.
Local residents finally took it upon themselves to report the commotion to the nearest police station.
The only explanation the nonplussed officer could allegedly offer when the City Police finally arrived was that false alarms from the alarm system were a common occurrence.
Others, however, dispute this, saying the alarm that tripped at regular intervals was the smoke alarm – because of illegal smoking in the building – not the burglar alarm.
Sources allege that only when the City Police arrived did the SFF member accompany them for an inspection behind the building and around the perimeter of the site.
That is when they found stolen items, including two computer screens, a water cooler and a filing rack along the eastern palisade.
The burglars cut out a section of the roof to gain access to wires, which they cut off in an effort to stop the alarm. They also broke open and cut off wires inside an electronic box next to one of the big safes.
The burglars also pulled out red lights along the corridors of the building in an effort to stop the alarm. The red lights flash when the alarm goes off.
They eventually managed to silence the alarm.
The thieves got away with two computer keyboards, two computers and a printer.
They tried to lift a photocopying machine in the main typing pool, but the piece of equipment proved too heavy for them.
The burglars broke a door from the inside after which they escaped through a window, which showed no signs of forced entry.
There was a stuffy and suffocating atmosphere in the courthouse on Friday morning as the air-conditioning system was left malfunctioning.
Head of Administration at Katutura Magistrates Court, Andrew Kompeli, said to his knowledge, the alarm went off at 04h00 and the City Police arrived at 06h00.
Kompeli said the burglary meant significant financial loss to the courts because of the substantial cost that would be incurred in repairing the alarm system.
The Namibian Police has established a Computer Theft Unit because of the recent spate of large-scale computer thefts.
Efforts to reach the unit for comment on the Katutura Magistrates’ Courts burglary were unsuccessful.