Windhoek robber taxi driver given 5 years

By: WERNER MENGES

A PIRATE taxi driver, who was accused of robbing a passenger in Windhoek last year, has been sent straight to jail for five years.

Tangeni Silas Johannes (23), who is actually a motor mechanic, and Petrus Boungue, (25) were convicted on a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura on Wednesday. Their trial ended with Magistrate Conchita Olivier sentencing each of them to a five-year jail term.

The two men had been in custody for some ten and a half months before their trial was finalised.

The woman they were accused of robbing, Desire Coetzee, told the magistrate during the trial, that the robbery was an experience that has changed her life. She has been left over-cautious and scared of everything after she was robbed in Windhoek on October 9 last year, she said. A 65-year-old wedding ring, which was a family heirloom, was one of the items stolen from her during the robbery.

The two men pleaded not guilty when their trial started on June 24.

Coetzee told the court she was at Maerua Mall in Windhoek on the afternoon of October 9 when a taxi tout approached her and asked if she needed a taxi. She accepted the offer and asked to be taken to Pionierspark, she said.

After the man – Coetzee told the court this was Johannes – had put her luggage into the boot of the car, they drove off. He then received a call on his cellphone and turned around to pick up another passenger at the mall, she said.

Instead of driving to Pionierspark, he first headed in the direction of Khomasdal, she testified. She later realised they were in the Otjomuise area, and then they drove on into an area which she described as a squatter camp.

At that point she realised what was about to happen, Coetzee said.

She testified that Johannes stopped the car and grabbed her cellphone from her hand. She saw he had an open knife in his right hand. He tried to stab her in her right upper leg, but she managed to pull her leg away in time, she said. Johannes ordered her to get out of the vehicle, she said.

She was loosening her safety belt when the second person, who was sitting behind her, pulled the wedding ring off her hand, Coetzee said. She testified the person, whom she could not identify, told Johannes: “Don’t stab her, just shoot her.”

As she jumped out of the car she saw Johannes pulling out a firearm as well, she told the court. She still asked Johannes to at least return her identity document to her but he just swore at her, closed the car’s door and drove off, she said.

Four days later she was again at Maerua Mall with her father when she spotted the same vehicle and contacted the Police officer investigating the case, the court heard.

After following up information he had received from the public, the officer, Detective Sergeant Joseph Ndokosho had already found Coetzee’s stolen handbag in a riverbed in Katutura on the day after the robbery.

Ndokosho told the court that after he had arrested Johannes at the mall, Johannes told him he knew of the robbery. Johannes however placed the blame on Boungue, Ndokosho testified.

At Johannes’s house, Ndokosho said, he found Coetzee’s suitcase and some of its contents under Johannes’s bed, while towels belonging to Coetzee ,were found on the bed.

It was established that the car that was used as a taxi, belonged to another Police officer, who had taken it to Johannes to have repairs done on it.

Boungue was arrested at Ondangwa, the court heard.

Another witness told the court that he bought a cellphone – a Nokia model that was valued at N$3 500 and that was claimed to have been stolen from Coetzee – from the two charged men for N$400.

The phone was also recovered.

The ring stolen from Coetzee has not been found back, though.

Public Prosecutor Roxzaan Witbooi presented the State’s case to the court. Johannes and Boungue conducted their own defence during the trial.

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