Windhoek
Mistakes of monumental proportions, which include sloppy investigations and an unnecessary bloated number of suspects, were key in why judgement in the Caprivi high treason case was only delivered yesterday, 16 years after the suspects were initially arrested.
These are the views of two legal experts who weighed in on the landmark judgement delivered by High Court judge Elton Hoff yesterday, which showed a conviction rate of about 10 percent from the over 300 suspects who were initially arrested in connection with the 1999 failed Caprivi secession attempt.
Like Norman Tjombe, University of Namibia law professor Nico Horn believes the then prosecutor general, Hans Heyman, made profound mistakes when charging the suspected participants in the failed secession attempt by not targeting the ringleaders.
Some of the alleged masterminds of the secession attempt, such as John Samboma who was apparently one of the commanders of the Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA) and another key architect, Geoffrey Mwilima, are now among the convicted.
Describing it as a “travesty of justice”, Tjombe said a 10 percent conviction rate is in itself a miscarriage of justice, especially fro the families of people who perished in the cowardly attack 16 years ago.
“These families had the State as their only hope of seeing to it that justice is carried out properly. But when only 10 percent of the accused is convicted, those families would be justified in concluding that justice was not attained,” Tjombe, who served for many years as a human rights lawyer, opined. “It means there was little, if any, evidence against the majority of the accused. And this boils down to poor investigations,” he said.
Judge Hoff yesterday acquitted 35 accused, but convicted 30 others of high treason, murder and attempted murder. In 2013, 43 others were acquitted, after which some have been threatening the State with lawsuits.
Some years ago, a ‘treason unit’ was created within the structures of the Namibian Police in an attempt to get a respectable conviction rate against the accused advocates of secession.
“The State did a poor job because some people were acquitted not necessarily because they were not involved in the secession attempt, but because of technicalities,” Tjombe, who himself has represented some of the accused, said.
He believes some of the convicted people could approach the Supreme Court for recourse, a process he fears will prolong a case he believes should have been wrapped up many years ago.
“These mass acquittals affect our human rights record as a country,” he said. Horn believes the case could have been concluded even in three years – if the State had narrowed its case to key leaders of the armed uprising.
“Prosecutor Hans Heyman, and may his soul rest in peace, made some mistakes in charging so many people and on so many [278] charges,” he said.
Horn is of the opinion that while an avalanche of lawsuits is very likely, not all the acquitted persons would succeed at it.
“There were a few cases where the judge said there was absolutely no grounds for the accused to be arrested in the first place. Those ones could successfully sue. As for the rest, it would be argued that whether they were guilty or not, there was reasonable legal ground to arrest them.”
Commenting on the possible political implications of the mass acquittals, Horn said he does not foresee a crisis coming.
“Many of them are old now and after spending 16 years in prison, the majority of them would not harbour any secession ideals – even with similar views across the border in Western Zambia where a group of people are trying to secede Barotseland,” the Unam professor of law concluded.