A local seal harvesting and processing company, Seal Products, has accused the Namibian Police of seizing 501 boxes of seal products without a court order or judicial warrant. Seal Products has approached the Windhoek High Court seeking an order directing the police to return the 501 boxes containing 285kg of seal products before they go bad. The company further wants the court to declare the “warrantless” seizure and continued detention of the products as unlawful and set it aside.
In court documents filed last week, the company’s general manager Charles Jiang said on 10 January, police inspector Felix Ndikoma seized 501 boxes from their warehouse located at Lafrenz industrial area, in Windhoek without any court order.
“Mr Ndikoma ordered the seal products to be confiscated without any warrant and without any court order. He also ordered that the shareholder, Mr Hou Xue Cheng, be arrested. The criminal case against the shareholder of the applicant has since been withdrawn on 15 March 2024,” said Jiang.
He said Ndikoma indicated that the boxes will be returned once the company provides documentation showing that the seal products legitimately belonged to the company.
“These documentations were shown to him,” he said.
Jionga said they further engaged the office of the inspector general on 15 February and were informed that the boxes would be returned.
He said the matter is urgent as without the products the company cannot trade and is forced to wait until the next harvesting season.
“The applicant is losing substantial amounts of money running into hundreds of thousands of Namibia dollars every week that the respondent (police) keeps possession of its products. I do not know what benefit the respondent will derive from keeping the applicant’s seal products,” said Jiang.
He further said the products are perishable and need to be stored adequately. The police through their lawyer Cynthia Endjambi have indicated their intent to oppose the suit before judge Hannelie Prinsloo. The company is represented by Kadhila Amoomo.
Yesterday, the Court postponed the matter to 18 April for an urgent application hearing.
-mamakali@nepc.com.na