2015-10-27Staff Report 2 Windhoek Judge Alfred Siboleka yesterday said he was ready to hear submissions on the verdict to be delivered in one of the longest running rape and robbery trials in recent history. Siboleka set down the dates of November 19 and November 23 from 09h00 to 10h00 in the morning and the whole of November 24 for State Advocate Innocencia Nyoni and defence counsels Bronell Uirab and Christian Nambahu to sway him one way or the other. Both counsels are acting on instructions of the Directorate of Legal Aid. Charles Namiseb and his co-accused Edwin Tourob are charged with assaulting and robbing an elderly couple at the sleepy town of Uis in the Erongo Region on October 3, 2010 and raping the 69-year-old woman. The victims cannot be identified to protect the identity of the rape victim. The judge has already ruled as inadmissible certain admissions Namiseb allegedly made to police officers after his arrest. However, a sample that was taken from the vulva of the rape victim did contain traces of his DNA, while a T-shirt belonging to him contained traces of DNA of the male victim. The only evidence against Tourob is that he was shot by the police while trying to get away from a police roadblock. His explanation was that he was looking for a lift to Khorixas when he was picked up by two unknown men in a Toyota Corolla. The elderly couple was robbed of a Toyota Corolla. While they were driving, they came upon a police roadblock and stopped, and another car passed them and stopped in front of them. However, when the vehicle passed them, he said, the driver of the car he was in suddenly drove off and when he asked him why he was driving when the police stopped them, he was ignored. It was then that he grabbed the steering wheel of the car and managed to pull up the handbrake, which caused the car to veer off the road and crash into a heap of sand, Tourob narrated. He further said that the driver and his passenger then got out of the car and ran away, with him giving chase. “I wanted to catch him (the driver) and hand him over to the police,” Tourob told the court. He said that he caught up with the driver at a fence next to the road and grabbed hold of his shirt, but the driver managed to free himself and ran off. When he climbed through the fence, he tried to follow the driver, but could not get up from the ground where he fell down, according to his version. After another failed attempt to get up he realised that he was shot and he then lost consciousness. According to him, when he woke up the next morning he heard dogs barking and people talking. So he decided to get help and when he reached the people he told them what had happened and asked them to call the police. That was when he was arrested and taken to Khorixas, Tourob concluded his testimony of his version of events. Namiseb did not testify in his own defence, leaving his fate in the persuasive powers of his lawyer. They remain in custody. 2015-10-27Staff Report 2
