By William J.Mbangula
OSHAKATI
A police officer is implicated in spreading falsehoods about a possible prison sentence for an accused in a traffic accident, resulting in the accused committing suicide.
Sergeant Absalom Kaboy Tobias of the Police Traffic Unit is accused of having scared the late Petrus Ndali Nembiya into committing suicide after he allegedly told him that he would be imprisoned following a head-on collision in 2004.
Family members of the victim brought a death note to New Era’s office last Friday in which the police officer is implicated. According to family members, Sergeant Tobias, who was the investigating officer in the case, had been insisting that the deceased pay him a commission of N$6000 after his being compensated by the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (MVAF) recently.
It is said that before the matter was heard in court on July 19, 2007,the police officer approached the deceased and allegedly told him that he had been found guilty of causing the accident, and that he faced a maximum punishment of between five to eight years in jail.
A day before the court hearing, Nembiya hanged himself at home.
The note says in part: ‘I want to leave this small piece of paper so that my family can know why I am doing this. There is one Sergeant Absalom Kaboy Tobias, who told me that I am found guilty in the pending case of 19 July. He told me that I would be sentenced from five to eight years in jail. He said I caused the death of the two people who died on the spot. I don’t want to go to prison. So, my family if you want to know why I did this, ask Tobias.’
Asked for comment, police public relations officer Constable Jonas Matheus confirmed that a day after the death of Nembiya, family members brought the note to the police.
He declined to comment further on the content of the note and the allegations made by family members to the newspaper, because this could jeopardise pending investigations.