Faced with the prospect of being sent to prison for the child-sex crimes that he had admitted and was convicted of on Friday, the 71-year-old Roux on Saturday allegedly chose suicide as a way out of the daunting legal troubles that have engulfed his life over the past two years.

Roux shot himself with a .308 rifle at the farm Vierpanne in the Gobabis district between 16h00 and 17h00 on Saturday, Warrant Officer James Matengu, a spokesperson for the Namibian Police, said yesterday.

Roux died at the scene after shooting himself in the forehead, Matengu said.

He chose a spot in the veld at the farm as the place to end his life.

Roux had ample reason to be gloomy when he left the High Court in Windhoek for what turned out to be the last time on Friday.

Already in frail health - his bladder and prostate gland were removed because of cancer about a year ago - he had just heard that Judge Van Niekerk had convicted him on an additional four charges in connection with allegations that he had had numerous sexual liaisons with young homeless boys at Gobabis between 2000 and early April 2004.

These additional convictions followed on three other charges - two counts of rape in terms of the Combating of Rape Act of 2000 and one count of attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice - on which he had already been convicted at the start of his trial four months earlier.

The court eventually judged Roux to be guilty on the remaining charges along the same lines as the admissions that he had made in a written plea explanation, which his defence counsel, Louis du Pisani, read to the court at the start of the trial.

In that statement, Roux offered guilty pleas to alternative charges on four of the main counts of rape he faced.

The result was that Judge Van Niekerk convicted him on Friday on an additional four counts of contravening the Combating of Immoral Practices Act of 1980 by having solicited four boys - three younger than 16, and one still under 14 - to commit a sexual act with him between 2000 and early April 2004.

On the two charges of rape that he pleaded guilty to, Roux admitted that he had caused two boys younger than 14 to have sexual intercourse with him.

His encounters with one of these boys took place between 2000 and April 6 2004; with the other, it took place between 2003 and 2004.

Roux's explanation was that the boys had pestered him for money during his monthly or bi-monthly visits to Gobabis from Vierpanne, the farm where he stayed some 174 kilometres north of the town.

On one of these occasions during 2000, some of the boys got onto the back of his bakkie "and suggested that they perform sexual acts with me against payment", he related in his plea explanation.

"Although I protested at first, I succumbed to the proposal because I suffered from sexual urges," Roux stated in the document.

"After this first incident, I was held at ransom by the complainants who threatened to go to the authorities whenever I indicated that I wanted to stop or that I was no longer prepared to give them money," he also stated.

"They would simply get onto the rear of my vehicle and say that we must 'play'.

I realise, however, that I could have stopped at any time and avoided them altogether had I wanted to."

He informed the court that he initially paid the boys small amounts of money ranging between N$10 and N$20.

These amounts were gradually increased as the boys demanded more money from him, and on April 6 2004, with five of the boys telling him that he had to pay each of them N$6 000 to keep them from reporting the incidents to the authorities, he withdrew N$30 000 from his bank account and handed N$6 000 to each of the boys, he added.

The boys went on a shopping spree after that, the court heard during Roux's trial.

They bought themselves new mountain bicycles and trendy, brand-name shoes and clothing.

These items, as well as N$7 000 in cash that the boys still had left when the Police started investigating the case, have been handed in with the High Court as exhibits in Roux's trial.

What should now happen to these exhibits is a question that Judge Van Niekerk will still have to determine.

With Roux absent from court yesterday, she did what the Criminal Procedure Act prescribes and declared the N$20 000 bail that he had posted in August 2004, after he had spent four months in custody, as provisionally cancelled and forfeited to the State.

On the issue of the exhibits, she asked State Advocate Ruth Herunga to prepare submissions to the court on the question what the law empowers the court to order in connection with items like these that had been bought with the proceeds of crime.

As Roux left the High Court on Friday, he was asked how he was doing.

"Dinge lyk maar donker," ("Things are looking rather dark.") was his answer.

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