2017-08-01Staff Report 2 Roland Routh Windhoek-State Advocate Marthino Olivier yesterday rejected the guilty plea of a man who stabbed his former girlfriend multiple times in the upper body and neck while she was recuperating in hospital from a stab wound he inflicted on her the previous night. Olivier told Judge Christi Liebenberg he does not accept the guilty plea of Hendrik Nowoseb, 25, as the plea did not contain the element of intent. He said the Prosecutor General wants a conviction of murder with direct intent, while Nowoseb disputes that he had any intention to kill Willemina Tsauses in Outjo State Hospital. Nowoseb faces one count of murder, one count of housebreaking with intent to murder and attempted murder, both read with the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, and another count of attempted murder. According to the State, Nowoseb broke into the home of Tsauses during the night of December 6, 2014 with the intention to murder Tsauses and stabbed her in the upper body with the intent to kill her. At the same time hestabbed the new boyfriend of the deceased, Deodorius Khamuxab, with a knife in his face with the intent to murder him. The next day, the indictment states, Nowoseb went to the hospital where Tsauses was recuperating and stabbed her multiple times in the upper body and neck, causing her to die from hypovolemic shock caused by a lung injury sustained during the attack. He pleaded guilty to the murder charge, but denied the attempted murder charges and the breaking and entering charge, as well as intention to commit murder. The legal aid lawyer of Nowoseb entered a plea explanation that set out the reasons for the plea. In the plea explanation that was read into the record by Natji Tjirera, the accused admitted that he stabbed the deceased in the shoulder the night before her murder, but claimed he only did it to scare her and to teach her to respect him. According to the accused, he went to the house where the deceased lived to talk to her and when he arrived there he called her name and she opened the door of the room she was in. “I entered and upon entering I saw the complainant in count three on the bed and I enquired from the deceased what was going on, to which she replied that it is none of my business. “I grabbed the deceased by the arm and insisted on knowing what was going on and she told me that since I am not man enough she has decided to move on and was now dating the complainant in count three,” Nowoseb testified. He went on to say: “Upon hearing these words I snapped and pulled a knife I had with me and stabbed her once on the shoulder to injure her, so that she could respect me.” According to Nowoseb, he admits his actions were intentional, wrongful and unlawful and intended to cause the deceased grievous bodily harm and, therefore, he entered a guilty plea on assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The next day, he said, he learned that the deceased was in hospital and he went there to offer his apologies, but the deceased responded with a “volley of insults” and he snapped again and stabbed her several times “to get her to respect me and not to insult me in future”. Nowoseb said he stabbed the deceased out of anger and only had the intention to injure her, but admitted that his actions were reckless and could cause the death of the deceased. 2017-08-01Staff Report 2
