WINDHOEK – A resident of the Havana settlement of Windhoek who was convicted of murder with direct intent and robbery with aggravating circumstances for slitting the throat of his former girlfriend and mother of his daughter, before he robbed her and her new boyfriend of a gas stove, still maintains he did not commit the dastardly deed.
Edmund Elvis Nanub, 35, told Windhoek High Court Judge Dinnah Usiku, at the High Court at the Windhoek Correctional Facility yesterday, that he has nothing to say sorry for because he did not kill and rob the deceased, Gedrudt Noarises, who was pregnant at the time of her death.
Judge Usiku convicted Nanub of murder and robbery last month and called the murder “heinous, brutal and monstrous”.
He was charged with murdering his former girlfriend on September 11, 2013 at Havana by hitting her with bricks, as well as strangling her and stabbing her multiple times with a knife in the throat, neck, head and back before he robbed her of a gas stove.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges at the start of his trial.
Nanub testified in mitigation yesterday that he does not know the age of the child he fathered with the deceased and that he knows nothing about her, only that he thinks she stays with her maternal grandmother.
The grandmother, Rosina Noarises-Gaoses, testified in aggravation of sentence that the deceased was her everything.
“She was the one that took care of us – me, her two children and her siblings as well as my invalid husband,” the distraught mother told the court while wiping the tears from her face.
She further said the deceased was employed as a domestic worker and from her meagre earnings she managed to buy food for them as well as give them some money.
She said the deceased paid for the upkeep of Nanub, who was unemployed and used to “zula” to survive. Zula is a slang word for hassle, hustle, struggle. However, during cross-examination by Titus Mbaeva, the legal aid lawyer for Nanub, she conceded she could not say for certain if Nanub was working or not as she only visited two or three times a year when the deceased had invited her.
Noarises-Gaoses further told the court that on one occasion when she visited her daughter the latter told her that she wanted to “divorce” from Nanub, and he told them “in brackets” that the deceased will never leave him – “’you will see what will happen if you ever leave me’.”
State Advocate Erich Moyo asked the court to sentence Nanub to life imprisonment on the murder charge and five years on the robbery charge. According to him the deceased was cold-bloodedly, cowardly and brutally butchered by someone who was supposed to love and protect her. He said that the deceased was killed for “committing the unforgiveable sin” of leaving the accused. According to Moyo, the deceased suffered very painful injuries as the post-mortem report showed several cuts to her vital blood vessels and her neck was almost severed.
He asked the court to send a clear message to the accused and to those likeminded that the courts will frown on persons who savagely butcher women and children. He said it is the court’s obligation to rid the streets of heartless men who kill those they are supposed to love and protect.
Judge Usiku said she will deliver the sentence on September 21 at 10h00.