30 years in jail for child killer

Werner Menges

CHILD killer Niklaas Muzorongondo is facing three decades in prison.

Muzorongondo was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment on a charge of murder in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

It is sad and shocking that Muzorongondo killed his victim, Antoinete !Aes, only because she had been crying, according to the version he gave to the court, Judge Naomi Shivute remarked during his sentencing.

Muzorongondo deprived an innocent and defenceless child of her young life, the judge said.

“Cruelty of this nature directed to a child is unimaginable and it should be rooted out through an appropriate sentence,” she added.

Muzorongondo (32) was convicted of murdering !Aes, who was his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter, at a farm in the Maltahöhe area in March 2010. He was also found guilty of defeating or obstructing the course of justice when Judge Shivute handed down her verdict in his trial six weeks ago.

The conviction on the second charge stems from attempts that Muzorongondo made to hide the death of !Aes, by burying her in a shallow grave and claiming that she had gone missing while she was in his care at the farm where he was living at the time.

Judge Shivute sentenced him to 12 months’ imprisonment on the count of defeating or obstructing the course of justice, with that sentence ordered to be served concurrently with the prison term on the murder charge. Muzorongondo admitted at the start of his trial that he assaulted !Aes at farm Rooidam in the Maltahöhe area on the evening of 9 March 2010. His explanation for the assault was that !Aes had been crying, and that he wanted her to quiet down.

He informed the court in a plea explanation and in his testimony during the trial that he punched the crying child in the abdomen and then picked her up and threw her to the ground. She hit a cement floor head first, he said.

Muzorongondo also claimed during his testimony that he did not know what went on in his mind when he resorted to an assault on !Aes in an attempt to stop her crying.

He told the court that he put her in her bed after he had thrown her to the floor. The next morning he was shocked to discover that she had died during the night, Muzorongondo said.

He then buried her in a shallow grave in the yard of the farmhouse.

Her body was dug up three days later, after Muzorongondo admitted that he had buried her.

!Aes died as a result of a skull fracture, it was established when an autopsy was done on her remains.

The fact that Muzorongondo is a first-time offender and the period he has spent in custody – about three years and five months – weigh in his favour, but the nature of the crime he committed against a small and defenceless child is also an aggravating factor, Judge Shivute commented.

Muzorongondo intends to appeal against his conviction and sentence.

He was represented by defence lawyer Boris Isaacks. Deputy Prosecutor General Belinda Wantenaar represented the State.