WINDHOEK – The lawyer for a man who is believed to have killed a two-year-old boy and allegedly raped his mother last Thursday ripped the testimony of the complainant to shreds.
Mbanga Siyomundji tore into the testimony of the woman with gusto after she gave evidence in the ongoing trial of Johannes Lukuwa Hausiku in the Windhoek High Court.
Siyomundji questioned the statements the witness made to the police six, 10 and 11 days after the incident.
In the first statement she made on June 06, 2012, she told police she was at the crossing to Khorixas with her son looking for a lift when a black sedan stopped with two women and two men as occupants.
She said the women told her not to be afraid and to get into the car.
They then drove in the direction of a nearby lodge where the car stopped and the people got out, she told the police.
She said when the car stopped, one of the women took her child and smashed his head against a rock while the other one held her by the arms.
The men then took turns to rape her, she said.
After they were finished one of the men wanted to kill her, but the other one who told her he was a member of a group called Kulindjinji said that since they had already killed her son, they should let her live with a warning not to tell the police.
According to the statement handed in as evidence, the second man then took her to the main road from where she walked to Outjo.
In Outjo she encountered an unknown woman who took her to the police station where she narrated her story.
The second statement made on June 10, 2012 had basically the same information with a few variations.
It was the third statement that had Siyomundji’s hackles rising however.
While in the first two statements the witness made no mention whatsoever of Hausiku, in the last one she made to the police and which she also narrated in court Hausiku was mentioned as the one who killed her son and raped her.
When Siyomundji wanted to know why the vast difference between the three versions, the witness said she became confused and “mad” because of her son’s death.
“Madam I am putting it to you that you are deliberately lying to this court. One moment when it suits you, you were of sober mind and senses and the next when things are not in your favour you were mad,” he told the witness who adamantly stuck to her story that what was stated in the third statement and what she told the court is the truth.
The woman testified that she went bar-hopping the previous night with her two-year-old son in toe and that after she met Hausiku at the last bar she went to, he bought her alcohol. But she could not remember what transpired after that.
She said she woke up the next morning in the bush with Hausiku who then informed her he rescued her from a gang of four men who wanted to kill her and who took her son.
Hausiku denied all the allegations against him and claims that he was not the man with her the morning of May 31, 2012.
He also denies he killed the boy and that he kidnapped and raped another woman on January 28, 2012 on six occasions.
Hausiku further denied he tried to rape another woman on January 29, 2012.
The trial was postponed to today by Judge Nate Ndauendapo on request of State Advocate Ethel Ndlovu.