Windhoek
Human rights activists yesterday slammed what they termed compromised investigations into the death of ‘struggle kid’ Frieda Ndatipo, whose killer the High Court could not determine at the end of a public inquest.
High Court Judge Christie Liebenberg ruled that there was no evidence linking a known individual to the killing of Ndatipo, who died a day after the country commemorated its annual Heroes Day last year.
Ndatipo was shot dead during a violent confrontation between a group of ‘struggle kids’ and members of the Namibian Police on August 27 last year.
“All the technicalities in the world will not take away the irrefutable fact that a life of a defenceless young woman was lost,” former Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) secretary, Elijah Ngurare, who attended Ndatipo’s funeral last year, said.
“I felt that sense of loss at Ehafo village, when we laid her to rest,” Ngurare added. The SPYL contributed N$25 000 towards her burial at Ehafo village in the Ohangwena Region.
Ngurare said that if she was a child of the powerful in society, the killer would have been arrested on the spot.
“God does not sleep, he watches all the happenings. Let it be the obligation of our collective conscience to look after her (Ndatipo’s) children,” he added.
Phil ya Nangoloh, the founder and current executive director of NamRights, said: “We don’t blame the judge, the whole process was rotten from the beginning because of shoddy police work.”
“Ndatipo cannot be killed by ‘a nobody’, it should have been an unknown police officer or police officers,” he added.
During proceedings the inquest court was told that 25 spent bullet casings were picked up at the scene of the crime after the shooting.
All the spent cartridges were linked to firearms in possession of members of the Namibian Police and the Windhoek City Police at the scene.
But the bullet that struck Ndatipo could not be found, and could not be traced back to any specific firearm.
In April, Titus Ipumbu – who at the time represented the family of Ndatipo – told New Era that the report surrounding the death of Ndatipo should not have been sent to the attorney general, as this could have compromised the credibility of the investigation.