Windhoek
“The only inference to be drawn is that the accused had acted with intent to bring about the deceased’s death.”
This was said by Judge Dinah Usiku yesterday just seconds before she found Gobabis farm resident, Paulus Shilongo, 32, guilty of murder with intent, read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act.
He was charged with murder following a savage assault on Dina Eises – with whom he was involved in a relationship – with various objects, including stones and a plastic pipe during the night of November 8 to 9, 2012.
According to the judge, although Shilongo admitted assaulting the deceased and denied the direct intention to kill her, the extent of her injuries tells a different story.
The judge noted that he admitted to first hitting the deceased with a stone on the eye, after which the deceased staggered backwards and then hitting her again on the forehead, causing her to fall down.
“He could clearly see that she had been injured, because he saw her bleeding from both wounds,” the judge stated. She further said after hitting the accused with two stones the accused went to fetch a plastic sjambok, which he used on animals, to hit her indiscriminately all over her body.
According to the judge, the doctor’s report confirmed the accused used excessive force when he delivered the debilitating blows to her skull, which was crushed in the frenzied assault.
The findings in the post mortem report are the deceased died as a result of head injuries with two frontal bone fractures, multiple mandible fractures, as well as cervical spinal fractures at the axis bone (in the neck), meaning her neck was broken.
She had also suffered multiple skin bruises and multiple deep facial cuts. The frontal skull bone had two fractures and there were multiple fractures on the jaw, which was broken into pieces. Those injuries, the doctor said, were caused by severe force for it to fracture, as the skull is made of very strong bones to protect the brain, Judge Usiku reiterated.
The judge founf that all these injuries, combined with the weapons used, show that the accused must have foreseen that his actions could cause the death of the deceased.