The trial of former magistrate and fraud accused Walter ‘Rooies’ Mostert in Windhoek Regional Court is currently on hold.
This is because the High Court is currently dealing with his application in which he seeks an order that will stop his prosecution and ultimately release him from custody.
Magistrate Justine Asino postponed the matter to 30 January 2023 with hopes that civil proceedings in the High Court will be concluded.
In his application before judge Nate Ndauendapo, Mostert is asking the court for an order that will permanently put an end to his prosecution. He further wants the court to declare his arrest and continued detention at Windhoek Correctional Services unlawful. Thus, he must be released.
According to his affidavit, Mostert claims his case has been clouded with irregularities from the onset in September 2015. In addition, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has failed to properly investigate his case.
He further claims the ACC investigating officers entrapped him in furnishing them with a self-implicating statement. He was allegedly made to believe that he was a witness.
Since his re-arrest on 25 March, Mostert has been adamant that his arrest and continued detention are unlawful. Mostert has claimed his first arrest in May 2021 was illegal, as his warrant of arrest was not signed by a magistrate as required by law. Thus, anything that the authorities carried out after that is illegal and of no effect.
The former judicial officer argued the same before magistrate Ivan Gawanab earlier this year, when he made his first appearance for escaping from lawful custody on 5 November 2021.
That case was struck from the roll after the State admitted that the warrant of arrest was not authenticated by a magistrate.
The court further ordered his release. However, before Mostert could walk free, he was presented with a second warrant of arrest. He then made an appearance again in the same court on charges under the Anti-Corruption Act and the Immigration Control Act, money laundering, extortion, fraud, and attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice.
The State is alleging that the charges emanate from a period between 2012 and 2013, when Mostert worked in cahoots with his co-accused by assisting a South African family to obtain Namibian identity documents illegally.
He allegedly furnished the ministry of home affairs with false documents that members of that family and their parents had been born at Usakos. In 2013, Mostert extorted N$90 000 from one Kosie Pieterse when he informed him that his family member was arrested for overstaying in Namibia after the visa had expired, alleges the prosecution.
The prosecution is further alleging that Mostert fraudulently obtained another N$250 000 from Pieterse. Mostert who is now representing himself has since denied the allegations citing that the N$250 000 in question was intended for a meat business that he and Pieterse wanted to venture into by exporting mutton to Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Mostert’s application has since been postponed to 21 October.
-mamakali@nepc.com.na