WINDHOEK – Today is D-Day for Richard Hange when Judge Christi Liebenberg delivers a verdict in the trial in which he is accused of fatally beating and stabbing the mother of his child.
During submissions yesterday Hange’s State-funded lawyer Hipura Ujaha stuck to the story Hange told the court saying his client was not the one who killed the deceased neither was he the one who inflicted the neck wound to himself.
According to Hange, it was the deceased, Lisa Kandovazu, who cut his throat and he passed out only to wake up in hospital with his neck bandaged.
He claims witnesses who testified they saw him cutting his throat are all fabricating the story to implicate him.
According to State Advocate Jack Eixab, the State proved beyond reasonable doubt that Hange was the one who battered and stabbed the deceased to death in her room at her mother’s house.
He said State witnesses corroborated each other and although with minute differences they told the same story.
This story is that Hange killed the deceased and tried to kill himself, he said.
The State alleges Hange killed Kandovazu, with who he was in a romantic relationship, on September 27, 2011, at her residence in the informal settlement of Havana in Wanaheda.
It is alleged Hange hit the deceased with an unknown blunt object(s) on her head, tried to strangle her and/or stabbed her at least twice with a knife.
Kandovazu died on the scene due to blood loss caused by one of the stab wounds while the injuries caused by the blunt force also contributed to the deceased’s demise, it is alleged.
State pathologist, Dr Yuri Vasin told the court that Kandovazu, who was 21 years old at the time of her death, was so severely beaten her brain was swollen and bleeding and she had various abrasions all over her body.
Hange, however, claims he only pushed the deceased away from him when she continued to stab him in the neck in her bedroom at Havana informal settlement.
During his evidence-in-chief, Hange related to the court that he arrived at the residence of the deceased at around 13h00 on Tuesday, September 27, 2011, and found the deceased and her brother Emel (Seun) at the house.
After he went with the deceased inside her bedroom, she locked the door with a chain and padlock, he said.
Hange further told the court that after the deceased locked the door, she started to stab him with a knife she had in her right hand and after he pushed her away he tried to get out of the room, but collapsed near the door only to wake up in hospital.