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Chilling Details On Shaduka Abuse

2008-07-18  Staff Report 2

Chilling Details On Shaduka Abuse
"By Chrispin Inambao WINDHOEK The death of the Secretary to the Minister of Defence could possibly have been averted had she pressed a formal charge against her husband in March. Chilling details have emerged explaining how Selma Shaimemanya, whose life was cut short with a gunshot allegedly fired by her husband, endured a life of abuse day and night. Before this week's tragedy, permanently ruining a highly troubled marital union - in March this year to be precise - the Commanding Officer of the Drug Law Enforcement Unit, Detective Chief Inspector Bart de Klerk, received a distressing phone call from a sobbing Shaimemanya who was inconsolable and sounded highly traumatised. When the police officer rushed to the couple's house, the victim told him her life was hellish because she was subjected to physical assault daily and that her husband was in the habit of threatening to shoot her with his pistol. The detective was told that Lazarus Shaduka's anger stemmed from 'cocaine abuse', the chief inspector said yesterday. After attending to this case of domestic abuse involving the businessman, who resigned under a cloud of controversy from a managerial job at the City of Windhoek, the senior police officer took the suspect to the police station. His weapon, the same that was used in the senseless murder of the hapless woman, was initially confiscated. But to his surprise, the victim refused point-blank to lay a charge of assault against her husband. ""She called me to their house in Klein Windhoek because the husband allegedly assaulted her and was threatening to shoot her. I arrested the guy and took him to the police station but she refused to lay a charge against him,"" he said. ""I could not keep the suspect in custody because there was no formal complainant from the woman,"" he explained. And a few weeks later, in April the victim phoned the chief inspector saying Shaduka had changed from his abusive and heavy-handed ways and no longer snorted cocaine. ""She said the marriage problems they were having were solved and that the husband was rehabilitated from drugs. She told the police officer that the gun should be returned to her husband because he needed the firearm to protect himself as he moved huge amounts of money from his (gambling) business,"" he said. Short of registering a case and the request from Shaimemanya for the firearm to be returned, the officer complied and turned in the firearm. The victim leaves behind a thirteen-month-old baby and many bereaved relatives, friends and workmates at the ministry. "
2008-07-18  Staff Report 2

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