N$4 million bank fraud referred to High Court

Home Crime and Courts N$4 million bank fraud referred to High Court

Maria Amakali
Windhoek

The Prosecutor General has decided to prosecute a man who stands accused of defrauding a local bank of N$4 million.
Charles Winston Manale, 34, who worked within the Standard Bank Namibia’s Trust Account Division, Windhoek, at the time of alleged incident will have to stand trial and answer to the allegations.

Manale faces a record 147 counts of fraud, theft by false pretense and theft for allegedly embezzling N$4 million.
The accused appeared before Magistrate Celma Amadhila in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Manale was summoned after his case was provisionally withdrawn from the court’s roll in October last year. The case had been postponed several times due to incomplete investigations, absent witnesses and outstanding bank statements and the Prosecutor General’s decision before the court temporarily withdrew it.

According to the Prosecutor General’s decision, Manale will take the stand for his trial in the High Court. Amadhila gave an order to have Manale’s case transferred to the High Court where he is expected to make his first appearance on April 16.

The charges stem from allegations that at the time Manale was employed by the said bank, he fraudulently transferred funds to his personal account.

It is alleged that the fraudulent activities that led to the bank and Dorothea Christiana Duplesis, who is a client of the bank, losing funds occurred between September 2013 and December 2015. According to the substantial facts on Manale’s charge sheet, he made fraudulent payments from the trust fund of the bank into his personal bank account fully aware that the money was not his. The transactions allegedly amounted to N$4 million.

Although Manale is on warning, he was denied bail after he went on a run in 2015. He later handed himself over to the police in 2016 and was kept in custody until his release in October 2017 when his case was provisionally withdrawn.