The father of the late Hango Ekonia Shipepe is not happy with the decision by the Okahao Magistrate’s Court to grant bail to the murder accused of his 19-year-old son.
Shipepe was murdered on 30 November last year at Ondugu in Uukwaluudhi, Omusati region.
The suspect, Igandjeni Shikwena, was granted bail of N$700 in May this year when he appeared in the Okahao Magistrate’s Court.
“We have lost a brave young man – a hero that no one can replace. We, the family, are very dismayed by the bail amount granted to Shikwena and would like to know why the bail was granted by the magistrate who was in charge that day,” the fuming father Andreas Shipepe said.
“We are all aware that the accused is innocent until proven guilty but we still feel that his bail amount should have been equivalent to the crime committed.”
The father added they simply want justice to prevail. “Nothing will ever bring back our dearly departed son; however, it will only give us comfort when justice prevails,” he told New Era.
The family claimed Shipepe was shot dead after trying to intervene in a fight allegedly involving Shikwena and his girlfriend.
According to the father, his son was murdered in cold blood. “It is so painful and unacceptable that our child’s life has been taken away at such a young age and what makes it worse is that the suspect used a an unlicensed gun and it is not on his name,” the father added.
“The fact that Shikwena did not hesitate to kill our child in cold blood makes one wonder whether the intervention could not have possibly prevented another woman from joining the statistics of GBV victims. Instead of Shikwena accepting that his actions were wrong, he turned against our child and killed him on the spot.”
– ljason@nepc.com.na