By Roland Routh
WINDHOEK – The murder and defeating, or obstructing or attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice case, following alleged intimate relations between inmates at the Windhoek Correctional Facility, has been allocated to Acting Judge Dinah Usiku in the Windhoek High Court.
Trial dates were provisionally set down for the trial of Herman Rukero, 25, Benedictus Afrikaner, 28, and Maleachi Seibeb, 47, who are charged with murdering Eddy /Gomxob, 33, with a sharpened metal piece of a broom at Cell 4 of the Maximum Security Unit (Unit 7) of the prison.
The dates are July 16 to 28 this year.
The accused also face charges that they allegedly threatened other inmates in Cell 4 not to talk about what happened or they would be harmed or killed too.
It is alleged the trio stabbed /Gomxob at least 14 times with the self-made weapon, stomped on his head and kicked him during lunch hour on January 18, 2012.
According to earlier news reports /Gomxob and Rukero were involved in an intimate relationship, but Rukero dumped /Gomgob and started a relationship with Afrikaner which did not go down well with /Gomxob.
A relationship also developed between Rukero and Seibeb it was reported at the time.
/Gomxob did not want to accept that it was over between him and Rukero and kept on pursuing Rukero, it was reported, and the three accused allegedly hatched a plan to get rid of him.
The murder plan was to lure /Gomxob to the toilet under the pretext that Rukero wanted to have sex with him, but where he was stabbed to death.
/Gomxob was serving a sentence of 17 and a half years on charges of rape, indecent assault, kidnapping, housebreaking and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Afrikaner was serving a sentence of three years and six months at the time of the incident, which he completed, but now remains in custody on charges he now faces.
Rukero received a prison term of 19 years in the High Court in December 2007 for rape, kidnapping and attempted murder while Seibeb is serving a 28-year sentence for two rape convictions.
Rukero and Seibeb are represented by Mbanga Siyomundji and Afrikaner by Milton Engelbrect from Isaacks Incorporated law firm on instruction of legal aid.
Deputy Prosecutor Antonia Verhoef represents the State.