A Khorixas resident accused of killing his common-law wife and mother of his two children with a pickaxe claims he hit her in self-defence when he pleaded not guilty before Windhoek High Court Judge Claudia Claasen.
He submitted a plea explanation to the court in which he admitted to beating the deceased with the back of the pickaxe, but denied intention to kill her.
While the State alleges that Barnabas Nawaseb broke into the house of Metihisia Tanises, the deceased, and intentionally killed her because she ended their relationship, he claims that she assaulted him by grabbing his testicles and he only hit her with the pickaxe to stop her from grabbing his privates. The plea explanation could, however, not be entered into evidence yet, as there were problems with the interpretation, and the matter was postponed to today for an interpreter. The State alleges that Nawaseb and Tanises were in a relationship, resided together in the nature of a marriage in Donkerhoek location in Khorixas and have two children together. On 22 December, an argument broke out between them, and the deceased requested the police to remove the accused and his belongings from her residence. The police took the accused and his belongings to his mother’s residence in Khorixas, it is stated in the indictment. However, during the early morning hours of the morning, he went to the deceased’s residence, and broke a window to get entry into the residence and killed the deceased by hitting her several times with a pickaxe on the head, with the intention to murder her. The deceased died on the scene due to traumatic brain injury. He thereafter reported the killing of the deceased to his sister and the police.
Nawaseb, on the other hand, claims that after the police removed him from the residence of the deceased, she came to his room, and asked him to go with her back to her residence. At her residence, the deceased started to argue with him about money and he decided to go back home.
However, the deceased refused to open the door or tell him where the key was, he further claimed.
He then went to the kitchen, collected the pickaxe, and threatened to break open the door. He further said the deceased then grabbed him on the collar and trousers while he was still holding the axe. She then pulled him to the bed and went to sit on the bed while still holding onto his trousers, he stated. “I then asked her to open the door so I could leave, and she grabbed my testicles and started pulling my testicles. I asked her to let go of my testicles. It was so painful, and I could not bear the pain, and I hit her on the head with the back side of the axe. I cannot recall how many times, but I remember the first blow. I only stopped hitting when she let go of my testicles,” Nawaseb narrated in his plea explanation. He further said that he then jumped through the window, and went to sleep at his sister’s house. He further claimed that the deceased was still alive when he left her residence.
Nawaseb is represented by Legal Aid lawyer Petrus Grushaber and the State by Basson Lilungwe. The matter continues today, and Nawaseb remains in custody.