Immanuel Uri-Khob's crime "was committed with brutal and persistent force", in full view of a five-year-old child, and the trauma this girl must have experienced "is simply unimaginable," Acting Judge John Manyarara commented when he sentenced Uri-Khob on counts of murder, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and common assault.

Acting Judge Manyarara on Friday last week found Uri-Khob (41) guilty of murder with a direct intention to kill in connection with Gawanas's death during the night between August 19 and 20 2003.

Uri-Khob had denied guilt on the murder charge, but admitted guilt on another two charges of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and common assault respectively when his trial started before Acting Judge Manyarara on April 25.

Uri-Khob admitted that he had assaulted two women - by kicking the one on her buttocks and by similarly kicking the other and also hitting her on her head - at farm Asgard some 40 kilometres east of Okahandja on August 19 2003.

He also admitted that he assaulted Gawanas at the farm on the same date, but denied that he had beaten her to death as was alleged by the prosecution.

During the trial, Uri-Khob claimed that he assaulted Gawanas at the farm after he had found her in the company of another man.

He claimed that when he, Gawanas and a group of children left the farm in his bakkie, Gawanas at one point fell out of the moving vehicle.

This incident must have been the cause of the injuries that claimed her life, Uri-Khob suggested.

In his judgement on Friday, Acting Judge Manyarara however noted that medical doctor Elizabeth Shangula, who performed a post-mortem examination on Gawanas, discounted the possibility that the numerous bruises and abrasions that she found all over Gawanas's body, as well as a linear skull fracture and freshly knocked-out front teeth, could have been caused by Gawanas falling out of a moving vehicle.

Dr Shangula's evidence, which she gave when she was recalled to the witness stand when State advocate Sandra Miller and defence lawyer Ivo dos Santos had already started to address the court on the judgement that was to be delivered in the case, effectively buried Uri-Khob's defence, Acting Judge Manyarara said when he delivered his verdict.

He accepted the evidence that had been given by a nine-year-old girl who told the court that she had seen Uri-Khob assaulting Gawanas after they had left the farm, where he had also assaulted her earlier that evening.

The girl told the court that after they had stopped along the road, she saw Gawanas getting out of the vehicle and trying to run away.

Gawanas was crying and screaming at that stage, the girl related.

She said she saw Uri-Khob pursuing Gawanas and throwing a stone at her, which hit her, and then beating her with an air pump that had been in the vehicle.

During the assault at the farm previously, she had seen Uri-Khob kicking Gawanas in the face and stomach, the girl also told the court.

Based on this evidence and the testimony of Dr Shangula, Acting Judge Manyarara found that "the unmistakeable intention" on the part of Uri-Khob was to kill Gawanas.

Uri-Khob is a widowed father of five children between the ages of eight and 17, and those of the children who are now living with him will have no other haven if he was to be sent to prison, the court was told before the sentencing.

The aggravating factors in Uri-Khob's case however outweigh his personal circumstances, Acting Judge Manyarara commented.

He said Namibians are living in a civilised society, and that this society has an interest in seeing that barbaric acts like the killing of Gawanas are not tolerated.

He sentenced Uri-Khob to 25 years' imprisonment on the murder charge, a two-year jail term on the count of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and a concurrent one-year prison for common assault.

Uri-Khob had been free on bail pending the finalisation of the trial.

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