WINDHOEK – Prosecutor General, Martha Imalwa, responded to a recent article in New Era implicating her office as the reason a murder and robbery case was thrown out of court.
According to Imalwa the case docket was never forwarded to her office, despite several requests. “As a matter of fact the PG’s office has been liaising with the police for further instructions because the investigations on this case were not finished and thus the Prosecutor General could not be expected and cannot give a decision on a case that has unfinished investigations,” reads a statement from her office. She added that records in her office indicate the case docket was one of the matters in which the PG had applied a prosecution guided investigation. According to Imalwa records further show that on March 26, 2012 detailed instructions in the matter were forwarded to the office of the Inspector General of the Namibian Police Force to re-submit the docket to the PG’s office on or before July 01, 2012 for monitoring the standard and progress of the investigation. “Unfortunately Nampol never re-submitted the case docket, despite numerous [queries] as to why it was not re-submitted,” she states. She further says her office and the state’s counsel could not be held responsible for the case being withdrawn and that her office has taken steps to find out why the prosecutor provided misleading information to the court that the docket was referred to her office for advice when this was not the case.
The case in question is the one in which over N$1 million was allegedly stolen from a cash-in-transit vehicle belonging to Southern Cross Security Services on November 11, 2011 and 22-year-old Shain van Wyk was shot in the head and killed. The police later found Van Wyk’s body under a bridge, 64 kilometres south of Otjiwarongo. Theodore Shipanga a colleague of the deceased allegedly discarded the body under a bridge along the Otjiwarongo-Okahandja road and made off with the money.
Theodor Shipanga, a former employee of Southern Cross Security Services, was charged with several counts, including murder, theft, defeating or obstructing the course of justice and malicious damage to property. His brother Aksel Shipanga, the second accused, was charged with theft, while the third accused Victory Shipanga faced a charge of theft. Petrina Binga and Samuel Iileka were both charged with a count of theft, based on allegations they had removed money from the scene of the armed robbery. Theodore was arrested when he went to the police station to report the crime, claiming he and the deceased were robbed by two unknown men whom they had given a lift from their last pick-up point at Otjiwarongo. Before that, he allegedly burnt the vehicle between Freedomland and Ombili settlements before getting away with the cash it is alleged. Several residents of the two settlements who picked up some of the money that fell from the vehicle were charged with theft as well.
By Staff Reporter