Windhoek High Court Judge Orben Sibeya last week set 9 March 2023 as the date to hear the application by convicted drug dealer Grant Noble for leave to appeal his conviction in the Supreme Court.
Noble (41) and Dinath Azhar (66) were convicted on one count of dealing in cocaine. They also faced one count of money laundering, but they were acquitted, as the judge found a duplication of charges.
Noble and Azhar were detained on 15 June 2018 following their arrest after a container they imported was found loaded with 412kg of cocaine, worth an estimated N$206 million. They were sentenced to an effective jail term of seven years each.
The cocaine was hidden between boxes of copy paper the two ordered from Brazil, via Cape Town to Namibia, through the port of Walvis Bay.
Noble, who is alone in the application for leave to appeal, claims the judge was wrong when he found that he was properly charged, and that he was unaware of any criminality in relation to the container.
According to grounds submitted by his lawyer Sisa Namandje, the judge did not make a serious effort to make a determination whether or not Noble partook in the commission of the offence and whether or not he could have prevented the offence.
Noble and Azhar claimed during their testimonies that they were unaware that their container was used to smuggle drugs into the country.
Noble said he was shocked, became dizzy and could not believe what he was seeing when the police declared the packages contained cocaine.
He further claimed the court erred when it did not find that the Namibian Police abused a judicial process as well as their power in obtaining a search and seizure warrant fraudulently – and that it was this warrant that was used to enter and search the container.
Noble insisted that the evidence obtained in this way should have been excluded.
He further alleged that the court erred in finding that the search was done lawfully by the Customs and Excise officials, while in reality, it was the police who searched the container on the strength of the unlawful search warrant.
Furthermore, Noble stated that the court blundered in finding that the irregularities and contradictions in the state witnesses’ testimonies were not material to “taint” their evidence.
He also said the court did not engage in a serious, objective and fair analysis of the evidence – and if it did, it would have found that the State did not prove the allegations against him.
Furthermore, Noble claims, the court – without any valid reason – rejected the evidence of two defence witnesses, who claimed to have been approached by two white men, who professed to have knowledge of the cocaine powder in the container and wanted them to remove it against payment.
Because of these reasons and more, he claims the Supreme Court will come to a different conclusion – and he, thus, has reasonable prospects of success.
The State will be represented by Timo Itula.