WINDHOEK – A man who spent most of his adult life behind bars wants to appeal a 60-year jail term he received in the High Court last August.
John Matheus Tjappa was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment on a robbery conviction and ten years each for three attempted murder convictions.
He was further sentenced to one year each for negligent discharge of a firearm, possession of a firearm without a licence and illegal possession of ammunition.
The sentences on the firearm-related charges were ordered to run concurrently with the sentence on the murder charge.
The convictions and sentences stem from a daring daylight robbery at Woermann Brock in Khomasdal.
Tjappa and a gang of armed men entered the shop just before closing time and brandishing firearms ordered the staff and customers still in the shop to lie on the ground.
They then ordered some staff members to fill bank bags and plastic bags with cash.
Tjappa’s accomplices got away, but he was caught by members of the Windhoek City Police after a short chase that ended with Tjappa being wounded in the foot and hiding in a stormwater drain.
The charges of attempted murder arose from Tjappa shooting at the chasing police officers.
One of the officers testified later in court that he still did not know how Tjappa missed him as he shot at him at almost point-blank range.
Tjappa offered a defence that he was apparently in Khomasdal looking for a vehicle to buy when some ‘botsotsos” wanted to rob him and started throwing rocks at him causing him to seek shelter in the drainage pipe. This explanation was however rejected outright as false by Judge Nate Ndauendapo who presided over his trial.
The judge said at the time that he found it implausible that Tjappa would not offer this explanation to the officers upon his arrest, but only made it available in court.
This, he said, showed that it was pure fabrication.
In his application for leave to appeal Tjappa’s legal representative, Mbushandje Ntinda, argued that the court erred when it accepted he was positively identified, while the evidence was riddled with contradictions, inconsistencies and was unreliable.
State Advocate Palmer Khumalo countered that one of the witnesses was so traumatised by the incident she testified, ‘I will never for as long as I live forget those eyes.’
Khumalo said there was no doubt that Tjappa was the person who robbed the store and tried to casually walk away from the scene, as was attested to by several state witnesses.
On the contention of Ntinda that the court erred when it found he intended to kill the complainants in the attempted murder charges, that it was not proved, Khumalo said it was testified Tjappa shot directly in the direction of the complainants.
On the sentencing, Ntinda argued the 60 years his client received is shockingly inappropriate and the court failed to take into account that the offences were committed at the same place, time and circumstances and the court should have taken the attempted murder charges as one for sentencing purposes. He also argued the court should have suspended part of the sentence and that the sentence in totality is so excessive that no reasonable court would have imposed it. Khumalo countered by saying Tjappa has proven that he is not rehabitable. He said previous courts have given Tjappa chance after chance and he scorned it.
According to Khumalo, barely eight months after being released on a decreased sentence, Tjappa again went back to his old ways. He said the court was correct in sentencing Tjappa to a lengthy prison term, as he clearly is a danger to society as the court mentioned in the sentence.
Judge Ndauendapo also mentioned Tjappa’s criminal career spanning over three decades.
According to the judge, Tjappa had clearly shown that he cannot be rehabilitated. “Don’t you think the rest of us deserve to sleep without fear at night?” he wanted to know from Ntinda.
Judge Ndauendapo reserved his judgment on the application for leave to appeal and said he would give his ruling on 4 November.