WINDHOEK – The trial-within-a-trial in the ongoing Stoop murder case in the Windhoek High Court resumed with the main accused, Nelsiene Utiapatie Kauaria, 28, giving evidence.
The trial was unexpectantly delayed when Kauaria fell ill. On Wednesday last week Kauaria was well enough again to testify on her own behalf on the admissibility of certain statements and confessions she allegedly made to Eslad Jamuine who was a warrant-officer at the time.
She allegedly also made a confession to Magistrate Alexis Diergaardt about her involvement in the murder of 78-year-old Gideon Johannes (Koos) Stoop at his flat at Erf 304, Shilunga Street in Cimbebasia, a residential suburb of Windhoek during the period 28 to 29 August 2009.
Kauaria and the Katjingisua siblings George Tjikuao Katjingisua, 30, and 29-year old Erwin Kasorere Tjiueza Katjingisua face charges of murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances and conspiracy to commit robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Kauaria claims that she never made any statements or confessions, but was only talking to Jamuine and Diergaardt. She said that she was shocked and confused when she was told by Sergeant Billy Kamusuvise that Stoop whom she claimed was her boyfriend was murdered.
According to her she was at a friend’s 21st birthday party that weekend in Okahandja and she received a phone call from Kamusuvise that she must meet with him when she returned to Windhoek.
Kauaria testified that upon her return from Okahandja, she went to the Katutura Police Station to see Kamusuvise. At the police station she met with Kamusuvise and Jamuine and was told about Stoop’s murder.
“I was very shocked and started crying,” she told the court. She denied a claim by Kamusivise that she was already crying when he first met her and seemed nervous and talkative. She insisted that she only started crying after she heard from Kamusuvise about the murder.
She further told the court that she was in the company of the deceased at his place the Friday before the murder, but could not remember whether it was in the morning or the afternoon.
According to Kauaria she left the deceased in the company of two persons, one of whom she thought worked for the deceased.
According to her, she signed the warning statement that Jamuine obtained from her because she was “just told to sign it”. She however apparently did not know that she made a confession when she “talked” to the magistrate, she said, as she did not know what a magistrate was as that was the first time she came in contact with the police and a magistrate.
When State Advocate Antonia Verhoef told her that she (Verhoef) has evidence that she already appeared before a magistrate in 2001 on four occasions, Kauaria denied it.
She said that at the time a boarder of her mother accused her of stealing his property, but she was merely arrested and never appeared before a magistrate.
She further told Judge Alfred Siboleka that she could not remember being informed of her rights and the first time she heard about her right to legal representation was when she made a first appearance before a magistrate and was refused bail.
She further said that she was pressurised by Kamusuvise to talk about things she knew nothing about. She said that at some stage she saw the two men (fellow accused) at the police station and Kamusuvise told her that the two men are family and they would blame her if she did not talk. The case continues.
By Roland Routh