2017-01-13Staff Report 2 Windhoek - Judge Alfred Siboleka yesterday convicted Okombahe resident Trougoth Nanub, 32, of murder with direct intent for having stabbed his girlfriend to death. The crime for which Nanub was convicted in the Windhoek High Court is said to have taken place at the sleepy town in the Erongo Region in October 2012. After a thorough analysis of the evidence before him, the judge said he was satisfied that it is the accused who stabbed the deceased, his ex-girlfriend, and that this had been proven by the prosecution witnesses beyond reasonable doubt. “I have come to the conclusion that at the time the accused caught up with the deceased and inflicted the stab wounds on the sensitive neck and chest areas, he directly intended to kill her, which has in fact happened,” he stated at the end of his judgment. Nanub pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial in July last year and although he did not give any plea explanation to the court his defense was that he did not stab the deceased, Cheroline Dausas, as stated in the charge sheet. Dausas, 25 was killed in a knife attack at Okombahe in the Omaruru district on the evening ofOctober 9, 2012. According to the judgment, the deceased and Nanub had been involved in a romantic relationship some time prior to her death. On the evening of the incident Nanub called Dausas when he found her and her then boyfriend walking to her mother’s house. When she went to Nanub, he started to beat her and he then pursued her and stabbed her with a knife when she ran away from him, the prosecution charged. During the trial it came to light the deceased indentified her attacker as “Striker”, a nickname the accused was known by. Judge Siboleka accepted the testimonies of the two nurses, Charlotte Khachus and Aletha Gaes, who said the deceased told them with her dying breath that Striker had stabbed her and on a follow-up question that Striker was her ex-boyfriend. While he disregarded the pointing out made by Detective Inspector Iikuyu, calling it sloppy work, he found that the evidence of the other witnesses was credible. On the other hand, the judge said, the evidence of Nanub was untruthful, especially if regard is had to when he testified and recorded his own biological father to be only his stepfather. “From the whole of the evidence placed before court on this matter, it is crystal clear that on the day of the incident in the evening, the deceased and her boyfriend, Lazarus Nangombe, offered to go to the shop to buy a candle for the deceased’s mother, Lisema Dausas, which she confirmed in her evidence. “As they left the shop on their way back home, the accused called the deceased in the riverbed and she went to him. Lazarus Nangombe stood apart waiting for her to return. To his surprise, he only saw the accused beating the deceased till she started to run away, to avoid further beating,” Judge Siboleka narrated. He said the accused chased after the deceased and when he caught up with her fatally stabbed her on the left and right side of her neck and on her breast, causing milk to spill from the wound. The attack was so ferocious that it caused the woman to die before the nurses could attend to her, but not before she could identify her killer: the accused before court. 2017-01-13Staff Report 2
