The prosecution has asked Windhoek High Court Judge Dinnah Usiku to convict murder accused Petrus Jacobus du Plessis on all charges he is facing. The 53-year-old Du Plessis is accused of stabbing his former girlfriend to death with a spear on 25 August 2018 at Old Location in Karibib.

He is charged with housebreaking with the intent to murder and murder read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act and one count of assault by threat. 

According to the indictment, the accused broke into the house of the victim by kicking the door open with the intent to murder her. The State alleges he intentionally killed the victim. 

It is also alleged that he is guilty of assault by threat by throwing a spear in the direction of the sister of the deceased, Alma Garises, and/or threatening to stab her and the three-year old son of the victim with a spear.

Du Plessis denied the allegation and instead accused the sister of the deceased for the brutal murder. According to him, he was not the one who stabbed the deceased, Beverly Kurangera, at least eight times with a spear. She was 26 years old at the time of her demise. 

Prosecutor Seredine Jacobs last week Friday told the judge inconsistencies and discrepancies in the testimonies of the State witnesses are not of such a material aspect that it renders the evidence void. “Contradictions do not render the evidence unreliable,” she said. “The court has to view the entire evidence of the witnesses in its totality to consider whether the discrepancies are material or not.”

In this case, she said, there is no reason for the court to find that the witnesses were unreliable. She said the court now has the burden to weigh two mutually destructive versions against each other and find which one is reasonably and possibly true and which is a mere fabrication. According to Jacobs, the total evidence of the State witnesses proves beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the accused who stabbed the deceased and that his version is a complete fabrication.

Tjiundja Kazohua, who appeared on behalf of Du Plessis on instructions of legal aid, argued his version could be reasonably true and should create doubt in the court’s mind. Should the judge accept that his version could be reasonably and possibly true then he must be acquitted, she argued. 

According to her, differences in the versions of the witnesses about the position the body of the deceased,  places into question their testimonies about witnessing the stabbing.

Her submission, she said, is that the accused’s version is true and that the sister in an effort to escape prosecution for the deceased’s demise conspired with her neighbours to place the blame on Du Plessis. The judge reserved her judgment until 25 March.

– rrouth@nepc.com.na