WINDHOEK – A man who has been in and out of jail over the last more than 30 years failed in the High Court for leave to appeal his conviction and sentence of 60 years’ imprisonment.
Judge Nate Ndauendapo said he came to the conclusion John Matheus Tjappa has no prospects of success on appeal and ordered that the matter be struck from the roll.
Tjappa lodged an application for leave to appeal late, but the judge accepted the explanation that he had to wait for legal aid to approve his application, but found there were no prospects that another court may come to a different conclusion.
Ndauendapo convicted Tjappa on August 16 on one count of robbery with aggravating circumstances, three counts of attempted murder and three charges in connection with the Arms and Ammunitions Act.
He was sentenced to 60 years behind bars consisting of 30 years for the robbery and ten years each for the attempted murders.
The three years he was sentenced to on the Arms and Ammunition Act charges were ordered to run concurrently with the other sentences.
In his appeal application Tjappa argued the court erred when it accepted the evidence of witnesses identifying him as the culprit while the evidence was riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies, making it unreliable.
He further argued there was no evidence adduced during the trial that support the charges of attempted murder and that the court failed to deal with the evidence of the moneybags.
However, Ndauendapo said, Tjappa was positively identified as the person who entered the supermarket wielding a firearm and ordered people to lie down on the floor while pointing the firearm at the staff, assaulting them and ordering them to put the money from the safe and tills in moneybags and walked out of the supermarket with the firearm and the moneybags in his hands.
He said there was enough illumination in the supermarket as the lights were on and some of the witnesses, like Coetzee, had a very close albeit scary encounter with the shaven-headed Tjappa.
At the time, the judge said, Cloete testified the accused’s face was embedded in her memory.
The judge said outside the supermarket it was still light, and he (Tjappa) was seen carrying moneybags and the revolver in his hands, and was pointed out to the police by members of the public who pursued him until he ended up in the riverbed and in the storm water drain pipe where he was eventually arrested with moneybags and the revolver in close proximity.
“In my view the evidence sustains the charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances,” Ndauendapo stated.
He said that the evidence by the three police officers who pursued Tjappa that he fired at them when they ordered him to stop proved that Tjappa attempted to kill them.
He also countered Tjappa’s argument that the lady who packed the money in the bags testified that she put the money in an FNB bag, but the bags he was found with were from Bank Windhoek and Nedbank.
According to the judge many years had gone by and it might be that the witness forgot about the exact bag while it must also be remembered that she packed the money in a hurry while being threatened with a firearm.
He said the evidence was that Tjappa was seen carrying the moneybags as he exited the shop and those moneybags were found next to him in the riverbed.
“There is no substance in that argument,” the judge said.
As far as the sentence is concerned, Ndauendapo said the appellant had a total of nine previous convictions ranging from housebreaking to robbery with aggravating circumstances.
“After spending 21 years behind bars, he committed the crimes for which this court convicted him within a year after his release. The appellant is clearly not a candidate for rehabilitation and society demands that he be in prison for the remainder of his natural life,” the judge stated.
He said Tjappa attempted to kill three police officers, therefore 10 years for each count is justified.
“The sentence of 60 years does not induce a sense of shock at all and is justified in the circumstances of this case,” he concluded.
The convictions and sentences stem from a daring daylight robbery at Khomasdal Woermann Brock in 2008.
By Roland Routh