TSUMEB – Namibian Police Force have allegedly questioned Oshivelo headman Erwin Nashikaku twice after they suspected he could be Lazarus Shaduka, the fugitive businessman who bolted from the country.
The Namibian police are still trying to trace fugitive Shaduka, who was found guilty in December 2012 on a charge of murdering his wife.
Shaduka allegedly fled the country via the Oshikango Border Post in the Ohangwena Region into Angola on December 13, 2012, and is still on the run.
He escaped shortly after the Supreme Court had reversed a High Court decision that gave him a fine of N$25 000 on a lesser conviction of culpable homicide.
Nashikaku claims last year in Otavi at the Four Ways Service Station, he was stopped and asked for identification documents by police and, last week again in Grootfontein at another service station he was stopped by members of the police that requested his identification documents.
According to Nashikaku, the police told him he has a strong resemblance to Shaduka.
“They follow me around thinking I am that man. I am not Shaduka, please. I am followed around and stopped for my ID, do I look like Shaduka?” he asked.
Shaduka, 46, is wanted for a retrial for the murder of his wife Selma Shaimemanya who was 33 at the time, in their Klein Windhoek home on July 13, 2008.
Chief Inspector Stephan Nuuyi said he was unaware of the incident, however, he praised the police in the region for leaving no stone unturned to find Shaduka.
“I am not aware of it, but it only shows that police are hard at work, and if we are not scrutinising we will not find anything,” he said.
Shaduka spent more than two years in custody in the Windhoek Central Prison’s holding cells, but was released on August 23, 2010, after he paid a N$25 000 fine on the day his murder trial ended. However, the freedom he enjoyed since his acquittal came to an end on December 13, 2012, following a successful appeal by the State in the Windhoek Supreme Court.
Shaduka’s earlier conviction of culpable homicide by the High Court was set aside by the Supreme Court, and he was convicted of the murder of his wife.
He was then sentenced to an effective 20 years’ imprisonment, according to the judgment handed down by Chief Justice Peter Shivute and Judges of Appeal Gerhard Maritz and Sylvester Mainga. Shaduka was not present in court when the court’s judgment was delivered on that day and he allegedly fled to Angola shortly afterwards.
Police have increased the reward money on offer for the capture of Shaduka from N$20 000 to N$100 000.