Keetmanshoop
A young man appeared in the Keetmanshoop Magistrate’s Court yesterday on charges of murder, arson and malicious damage to property.
Twenty-six-year-old Nicodemus Vincent Booysen is accused of killing his father after setting a shack, in which his father was sleeping, on fire between 03h00 and 04h00 on Saturday, which caused the pensioner’s death.
It is alleged the accused came home from a drinking spree at a local shebeen and knocked on his father’s shack at Ileni informal settlement, asking him to give him tobacco. However, when the father refused to open the door, he set the shack on fire, killing him in the ensuing inferno.
Making his first appearance yesterday the accused opted to use the services of legal aid after his rights were explained to him by the magistrate Philanda Christiaan.
The State, represented by Yvanne McLeod, opposed bail, indicating investigations were still ongoing and are at a sensitive stage, stating that the accused might interfere with the process and further argued that releasing the accused on bail is neither in the interest of the public nor in the interest of the administration of justice.
The case was remanded to May 31 for legal aid application and further police investigations
Meanwhile, a devastated mother of the accused and wife of the deceased says she is still trying to come to terms with the fact that her husband is no more and her son is the suspect in the case.
Speaking to New Era briefly from the neighbour’s house, Edeltrudis Booysen expressed her shock over the incident.
“I’m very hurt, I’m still in shock and I still can’t take it,” she said sadly.
Booysen says she doesn’t know what happened that morning as she was sleeping at the neighbour’s house and the shack had already burned down when they got there to try and help.
One of the neighbours New Era spoke to said that she woke up after realising the shack was burning. When she called out the deceased’s name to establish whether he was in the shack, he responded and asked her to help him but it was too late as the blaze was already raging and the neighbours could only stand and watch.
All personal documents and belongings of the eight people who stayed there including books of three learners were destroyed in the fire as well.