WINDHOEK – The appeal against his sentence by murder convict Mutagob Haraseb was dismissed in the Windhoek High Court. Haraseb was convicted of murder in the Katima Mulilo Regional Court and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
Haraseb was found guilty of the murder of an elderly woman from the Mushashani village in the Zambezi Region in October 2008 and it is against this conviction that he made the appeal.
According to the appeal judgment Haraseb was seen by various eyewitnesses in the company of the deceased. He even shared a smoke with one eyewitness whom he told that he would “take” the deceased who was very drunk at that stage.
He was also seen by another eyewitness in the company of the deceased at the sports field.
According to Judge Alfred Siboleka who wrote the judgment with Judge Kobus Miller agreeing, Haraseb’s election not to refute the direct evidence placing him at the scene of the crime was “risky and unreasonable”.
He said that in his view the magistrate was correctly persuaded by inferential reasoning in the absence of contradicting evidence to convict as charged.
According to Judge Siboleka the only inference that could be drawn from the evidence placed before the trial court that excludes any other reasonable inferences was that it was indeed Haraseb who killed the deceased and as this reasoning is in accordance with law the conviction stands.
Haraseb was represented by Inonge Mainga on instruction from the Legal Aid and the State by Advocate Palmer Khumalo in the appeal.
By Roland Routh