Roland Routh
Windhoek-Erwin Tebele, who is accused of killing his common law wife and mother of his child with a single stab wound to the chest, took the stand this week to testify in his own defence.
Tebele, 31, is accused of murder for stabbing Nina Katjatenja to death at their common home in Epako location during the late evening of September 3, 2013.
He maintains he did not intend to kill the victim, but only meant to hurt her as she inflicted two stab wounds on his inner left arm.
According to Tebele, he arrived home from his work as a fencer at a nearby farm during the afternoon of that fateful day and was invited for a few drinks by a friend.
The few drinks became a lot of drinks, he said, and he arrived back home between 00h00 and 01h00 that day. Upon his arrival at home he knocked, but when the deceased opened the door she asked him: ‘Erwin you know we have a small baby, why are you coming home this late after you were fucking around?’ Tebele told the court.
He said he was busy drinking water from a bucket when the deceased took a knife and started stabbing at him. “I tried to block the stabs with my left arm and in the process she managed to stab me twice on the inner left arm,” Tebele told the court.
According to Tebele, he then grabbed the deceased on her wrist and twisted her hand so that she could let go of the knife, and he then took the knife and stabbed her once in the left chest.
“I stabbed her to hurt her so that she could leave me alone,” he said.
“After I stabbed her, she said ‘Erwin you stabbed me’ and I dropped the knife and took the deceased outside and left her there. I went back inside to look at the knife and saw it was a big knife.”
He said he then took the knife and threw it behind the house before he went back to where the deceased was at the house of his in-laws in the same yard.
When he arrived at the house of his in-laws he heard his father-in-law ask the victim who had stabbed her and he replied that it was he and asked his father-in-law to call the police for them to arrange medical assistance.
The victim then informed him that she was getting weak and he held her in his arms until she passed on and waited there with the deceased until the police arrived.
With regard to the injuries on his arm, he denied that he sustained it during a fight the previous Friday night at a bar in Epako.
He said he told the police officers who arrested him that the deceased had stabbed him and he was bleeding, but was never taken for medical treatment. A defence witness testified that she saw the accused two days before the stabbing and that he was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and did not observe any injuries on him.
The trial was postponed to next Tuesday for submissions on the verdict and Tebele remains in custody.
State Advocate Felisitas Shikerete-Vendura prosecuted, Mbanga Siyomunji appears for the accused on instructions from legal aid and Judge Dinah Usiku is on the bench.