Louis Steenkamp (34) and Dawid Schrader (34) appeared before Magistrate FK Mundia on charges of housebreaking, arson, defeating the ends of justice and bribery.

Public Prosecutor Hans Thourob asked the Magistrate to postpone their case to November 2 for further investigation, and also requested that the two suspects be kept in custody in the meantime.

Steenkamp lives on a farm, Saalburg, close to Outjo.

Schrader lives at Outjo.

The charges they face flow from a fire that destroyed part of an office of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Outjo Police station between 00h00 and 01h00 on Wednesday last week.

According to Chief Inspector Charles Sibolile, the Police's crime investigation co-ordinator for the Otjozondjupa Region, 64 out of the 130 Police dockets in the office were destroyed in the fire.

The remaining dockets were damaged, either by the fire itself, or by smoke and water used to douse the flames.

Sibolile told The Namibian on Friday that footprints were found on the ground outside a window of the office where the fire broke out.

Some of the Police officers at the scene had an initial suspicion about who might have been responsible for the incident, and they then proceeded to farm Saalburg, some 22 kilometres out of Outjo.

There their hunch was confirmed when they found a similar footprint at a gate at the entrance to the farm, Sibolile said.

It is suspected that Steenkamp was trying to hinder the investigation of a case in which he is accused of sexually molesting a child.

The docket containing the results of the Police investigation of that case was one of those destroyed in the fire.

Steenkamp was released on bail early this month.

The bribery charge that he faces is also related to that case.

On this charge, it is alleged that he had offered a Police officer at Outjo N$10 000 in return for destroying the docket of the rape case against him.

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