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Police nab City official
POLICE have swooped on the head of the City of Windhoek’s human resources department in connection with a theft case dating back to 2004.
Heritha Sepiso was arrested on Tuesday afternoon over municipal property that she herself reported stolen four years ago.
According to Police information, Sepiso was sent to Katima Mulilo on a business trip in 2004, and travelled with a laptop, an overhead projector and other equipment necessary for her work.
Sepiso laid a charge of theft with the Police in that town, claiming that the items had been stolen from her. The City claimed the stolen goods from its insurer.
According to ACC boss Paulus Noa, however, Sepiso appears to have allegedly kept the stolen goods and some of the items were recently found in possession of her relatives.
The ACC became involved in the case earlier this year after receiving a tip-off.
Noa said the ACC asked the Police to revisit the original case, which resulted in this week’s arrest.
Sepiso was held at the Windhoek Central Prison until yesterday afternoon, when she was released following an urgent application to the High Court.
Her legal representative, Sisa Namandje, charged that her arrest was unlawful and malicious.
Namandje charged that there was no warrant for her arrest and no reasonable suspicion of her committing any offence.
According to Sepiso, she was attending a workshop at the Katima Mulilo Town Council in 2004, when someone broke into the room where she was staying and removed a laptop and a multimedia projector.
She told The Namibian that she reported the incident to the Police at the town and around the end of that year spoke again to officers there about the alleged recovery of these items in Zambia.
She did not hear anything about the case again until the station commander of the Windhoek Police station arrived at her office on Tuesday night, saying he was looking for a projector that Sepiso’s father in Katima Mulilo had apparently sent to Windhoek for repairs.
“I said he only sent a voice recorder,” she said of her father’s package, but told the Police officer that there was a projector in the main bedroom of her house in Pionierspark.
The officer accompanied her home where they searched for the projector, but to no avail.
Sepiso’s argument is that she hasn’t been in the bedroom since April this year and did not know that the projector had been removed.
Sepiso has been with the City of Windhoek for the past 15 years.
She is expected to return to court today.
