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Monday, October 30, 2006 - Web posted at 7:02:36 GMT Namibian escapes extradition WERNER MENGESA YOUNG Namibian man who has a two-and-a-half-year prison term waiting for him in Botswana on Friday managed to wriggle out of legal proceedings that could have resulted in him being extradited into the waiting hands of the Botswana penal system. |
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A legal technicality - but a fundamental one - scuttled Botswana's request for the extradition of Rudolf Katumbe from Namibia, it appears from the ruling that Magistrate Uaatjo Uanivi gave at the end of a hearing on the extradition request on Friday. Katumbe (30) is wanted in Botswana in connection with a case in which he had been convicted of illegally possessing 16 rough diamonds, valued at 2 025 Botswana Pula (about N$2 450). He still has to serve two years, six months and nine days of a three-year prison sentence that he received in that case in Botswana. Katumbe won't be heading back to a Botswana prison any time soon, however, after Friday's ruling. Magistrate Uanivi said there was no evidence before him to prove that the Rudolf Katumbe whose extradition to Botswana had been requested by that country's government was the same Rudolf Katumbe who was appearing before him. That gap in the extradition request was spotted by Katumbe's lawyer, Sisa Namandje, and the result was that Katumbe left the Windhoek Magistrate's Court in Katutura a free man. The Magistrate noted that in the documentation that the Botswana government submitted to Namibia's Minister of Justice to ask for the extradition of one Rudolf Katumbe, it was stated that this person's home address was at a certain Erf 189, Safari Location, Popa Village, at Rundu. The Rudolf Katumbe who appeared before Magistrate Uanivi to oppose the extradition request, which the Minister of Justice forwarded to a Windhoek Magistrate on June 28 this year, was, however, arrested at a house in Windhoek, the court was told during the extradition hearing, the Magistrate noted. He also heard that this house in Windhoek was where Katumbe was living. No age, language, identity number or passport number, or other features through which the person whose extradition was sought by Botswana could be identified, were mentioned in the extradition request and its accompanying documentation, the Magistrate also noted. He further commented that Ministry of Justice officials could have gone to Rundu to establish whether the plot mentioned as Katumbe's home address exists, and to establish if Katumbe had moved from there; however, no evidence on this aspect was produced at the extradition hearing either. Katumbe was arrested in Botswana shortly after he had entered that country through the Mohembo border past on May 20 2000. It was claimed that Botswana border officials had found 16 uncut diamonds, valued at about N$2 450, in his luggage. Katumbe denied having known about the presence of the rough gemstones in his bag, but was convicted in the Maun Magistrate Court and sentenced to a seven-year prison term on September 19 2000. On November 9 2000, while an appeal against his conviction and sentence was pending in the Botswana High Court, Katumbe was granted bail of P5 000. He then broke his bail conditions and left Botswana before the appeal was finalised. The Botswana High Court gave its ruling on the appeal on April 11 2001, when the conviction was confirmed, but the seven-year jail term was reduced to three years' imprisonment. |
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