WINDHOEK – The start-stop, stop-start murder trial of two men accused of brutally killing and raping a Swakopmund resident in September 2005 is drawing to a close after the defence counsels indicated they are closing their cases in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
The defence submitted its closing arguments yesterday before Judge Nate Ndauendapo. Kingsley Dausab, 46 and Michael Tsowaseb, 43, was supposed to already go on trial on charges of murder, rape, violating a dead body and theft in June 2011, but their trial has been disrupted by delay after delay due to a number of reasons including the no-show of both accused which led to their bail being cancelled and them being remanded in custody.
According to the indictment, they gang-raped and killed 34-year old Menesia Owoses at Swakopmund during the night of September 3 to 4, 2005.
Owoses died as a result of strangulation, it is stated and they then violated her body by cutting/stabbing her neck and private parts with a broken bottle, stone or other object and by inserting an object into her privates and by having sexual intercourse with her corpse, the indictment read.
Both men pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, rape, violating a dead body and theft at the start of their trial on March 31, 2016.
However, a confession by Tsowaseb, made to then Chief Inspector Ottilie Kashuupulwa on February 11, 2006 wherein he admitted the gang-rape and murder of Owoses at Swakopmund during the night of September 3 to 4, 2005 was admitted into evidence by Judge Ndauendapo after a protracted trial within a trial. According to the State, they first strangled the deceased where after they violated her body by cutting/stabbing her neck and private parts with a broken bottle, stone or other object and by inserting an object into her privates and by having sexual intercourse with her corpse.
The cause of death was given as manual strangulation.
Dausab’s defence has been all along that he was not in Swakopmund at the time the crime was committed, but that he left Swakopmund the night before and went to Okombahe via Usakos, but this was directly contradicted by Dausab’s girlfriend at the time who testified she was with Dausab in Swakopmund that evening.
According to Petrina Huibes, she and Dausab were together at her house the evening of September 3 and left together to go out.
Tsowaseb elected not to testify in his own defence, but his defence seems to be that he blames Dausab for the murder however, as his father already testified that Tsowaseb confided in him that he wanted to participate in the rape, but that Dausab had already killed the deceased by breaking her neck when he tried to have intercourse with her.
Dausab is however adamant that he was not in Swakopmund and he also denied that he made a warning statement after his arrest in which he admitted the offences he is charged with.
During his testimony in his own defence, he kept on repeating that he was not in Swakopmund and that he never made any warning statement, but only told the officers that arrested him, he will only talk in court.
The matter has now been postponed to September 27 and 28 for submissions on the verdict by Braam Cupido, the State funded lawyer for Dausab, Mese Tjituri on behalf of Tsowaseb also on the ticket of Legal Aid and State Advocate Erich Moyo.