By Anna Shilongo
WINDHOEK
Twenty -nine-year-old Morris Mazila Sibitwani, who is alleged to have murdered his 20-year-old girlfriend at Katima Mulilo on April 19, 2003 made another appearance in the High Court on Tuesday for submission of the case.
Sibitwani, who faces a charge of murder, was arrested on April 20, 2003, at a village some 50 km south of Katima Mulilo.
Since then he has remained in police custody.
At the time of his arrest four years ago Sibitwani was found with a letter in his pants’ pocket that said: “I love the girl very much. If she had died I would kill myself. I don’t see the use to suffer in prison,” the court was told, but Sibitwani, who pleaded not guilty when his trial started, denied that he ever wrote such a letter.
He is accused of killing Happy Mulela Kabajani by stabbing her with a knife more than 10 times.
Kabajani was found lying dead along a footpath at Katima Mulilo with stab wounds all over her body.
A letter alleged to have been written by Kabajani, addressed to ” Mazila” was found in a handbag that lay next to Kabajani’s body.
It said: “I don’t see the use to pretend when I no longer have feelings for you,” the court was told.
It is alleged that Kabajani had left her mother’s house in Sibitwani’s company earlier that morning. He was the last person seen with Kabajani.
The court was also told that the relationship between the two was going through hard times, according to testimony presented before Acting Judge Silungwe during the last stretch of the trial.
Submitting his record on Tuesday afternoon, Mbaeva who is representing the accused said 56 pages were missing from his record file. But Acting Judge Annel Silungwe questioned him if the missing documents were substantial to his submission, to which he said no.
“Are you sure that the missing pages will not affect your submission?”
He also questioned the State prosecutor, Johan Pienaar why he never submitted a copy of his submission to Mbaeva.
Following those inconveniences, Mbaeva appealed for the postponement of the case for his client to study the records, but the state prosecutor Johan Pienaar objected to the postponement.
However, the submission, which took all day, continued.
Summarising, the State prosecutor related his submissions on the two letters and the witnesses who testified in the last proceedings.
Pienaar indicated that the accused was the last person to be seen with the deceased and it could be that he killed her when he realised that their relationship was going sour.
“The accused was aware that their relationship had come to an end. Happy was also not having other enemies besides the accused when the relationship turned sour,” he told the court.
But the defence counsel disagreed with the State prosecutor’s submission, saying that the State failed to provide concrete evidence that will convict Sibitwani.
“The State failed to prove that the letter found in Sibitwani’s trousers was addressed to him; you also can’t prove that the footprints taken at the scene were that of the accused,” said the defence.
He further argued that it was wrong for the state to simply assume that the blood samples taken from the accused’s trousers were of the night of April 19 even though their DNA matched that of the deceased.
“How do you prove that? The blood samples taken might be for the night of the 18th when my client inflicted an injury upon the deceased. The State also failed to prove that the accused walked together with the deceased until the point where she was discovered dead, who can prove that? Was there any third party?” he questioned.
The defence counsel further disagreed with the State prosecutor that Sibitwani murdered his girlfriend when he realised that there was no solution to their relationship.
However, State Prosecutor Pienaar could not defend his argument as the court was running out of time.
Acting Judge Silungwe postponed the case to February 05, 2008.