One of the sons of the murdered farming couple, Armin Siegfried Riedel (68) and wife Brunhild Riedel (66), yesterday told High Court Judge Naomi Shivute that he wishes he could impose the death penalty on the killers of his parents.

Burkhard Riedel, who spoke on behalf of the family in aggravation of sentence, said for a person to take another person’s life for no reason at all deserves 10 times the punishment. 

“I would bring back the death penalty if I could, he told the judge. 

Riedel described his late mother as a very caring person who would go out of her way to help others and said she did not deserve to die that way. He further said that the two accused, Bernadus Afrikaner (37) and Salathiel Unaeb (49) should be removed from society for the remainder of their life so that they cannot be a danger to anybody else. 

The accused were convicted of two counts of murder, one count of robbery, one count of arson and one count of assault common while Afrikaner alone was further convicted on counts of contravening the Arms and Ammunitions Act. 

They burned the couple’s farmhouse to the ground causing damage of more than N$500 000 after robbing the residence. They overpowered the couple on their farm Grunfeld in the Gobabis district and murdered them. 

They killed Brunhild outside the house in an unknown manner whereafter they shot Armin in the head, causing his death. After ransacking the house and robbing several items, they set the residence on fire with the bodies of the deceased inside, making the cause of death almost impossible to detect. Both pleaded not guilty at the start of their trial and maintained their innocence even after their conviction. At first, it was suspected that the deaths were a result of an unfortunate fire, but further investigations led to the arrest of the two accused persons seven months after the incident. Both accused were employed at the farm and also resided there. 

Riedel told the court that the accused has shown no remorse for their barbaric deeds, saying they even worked together with him and his siblings on the farm for a week after the incident without showing any emotion and not saying anything. 

According to Riedel, the murders of his parents have affected his family severely, to the extent that the son of his elder brother who was raised by his parents after his father passed in a motor vehicle accident, got involved in drugs and dropped out of school. 

His other brother, who was farming in a farm a short distance from their father, was so affected by the murders that he let go of all his farmworkers and eventually sold his farm. He further said his own children will never know the love and affection of their grandparents, all because of the greed and brutality of the accused. 

Melissa Windisch, who represented both accused on instructions of Legal Aid asked the court to show the accused mercy and not sentence them indiscriminately. She said the court should take into consideration that both accused are the products of an underprivileged upbringing. 

Although neither accused testified in mitigation and maintained their innocence even after the verdict, the court should not hold that against them, she said. According to Windisch, the court should punish in accordance with justice and not out of vengeance. 

She proposed sentences of 25 years on the murder counts with 10 years on the second count to run concurrently with the first count, five years on the robbery count, three years on the defeating charge and two years and one year each on the arms and ammunition counts as well as six months on the assault count. She proposed that the sentences run concurrently leaving the accused with 40 years each.

State Advocate Ethel Ndlovu told the court that the murders were brutal and that the moral blameworthiness of the accused is exceptionally high. 

In this instance, she said, the courts are justified to impose sentences beyond the 37 and a half years prescribed by the Supreme Court in the Gaingob judgment. 

While she left the sentence in the hands of the court, she did propose consecutive sentences on all the convictions as the offences were committed separately. Judge Shivute indicated that she will deliver the sentence on 22 July.

– rrouth@nepc.com.na