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Home / Family of cocaine suspect to sue over ID leak
Family of cocaine suspect to sue over ID leak
2018-06-19Staff Report 2 Eveline de Klerk WALVIS BAY - Gavin Noble, the father of Grant Noble who was arrested on Friday in connection with a container stashed with cocaine weighing 412 kg, and worth N$206 million, says the family will take legal against those who leaked the identity of his son on Friday before he officially appeared in court. Noble says the family is unhappy about how the arrest was handled by some media houses that revealed the identity of Grant hours after his arrest on Friday in connection with the cocaine found at the port of Walvis Bay. Despite the fact that of the family only his son was arrested, Noble says the whole family has been subjected to the crime and has been receiving backlashes from several social networkers who have seen the post and shared it further. He singled out a weekly newspaper that posted an online story revealing the identity and pictures of both suspects before they appeared in court. “Their identities were not supposed to be released before they appeared in court and somebody must take responsibility for it,” he said. Noble said that he is currently in consultation with his lawyer to see how they can take the matter forward. Ironically Noble himself had run-ins with the law since 2005 until 2014 in connection with several drug cases. He also spent nine months in custody following a drug bust in October 2013. Noble, who was 53 years old at that time, however was acquitted of all charges against him by Magistrate Andre Matulich, after alarming anomalies appeared during the cross-examination of witnesses. Chunks of statements were simply copied, duplicated and transferred from one witness statement to another, error for error with some witnesses attesting to the fact they did not know. “Even where a nonsensical statement was made by one of the witnesses it was duplicated in another,” Matulich said when he gave the verdict during the court proceedings new Era attended. Grant Noble and another brother Granville Noble linked themselves to the case of their father when they were arrested on October 13 in Walvis Bay by the Anti-Corruption Commission for allegedly trying to bribe a witness in the father’s case with N$50,000 to change his testimony to favour his father. The case was struck from the court roll due to unwilling witnesses. 2018-06-19Staff Report 2
