25-year prison term for April 2000 farm murder

FOR a young Grootfontein resident the concept of Vision 2030 may have acquired a whole new meaning this week: he was sentenced to prison terms for murder and housebreaking that could see him being released from jail only in the year 2030.

Richard Ubiteb, who was 19 in April 2000, when the 70-year-old Heinz Rucker was murdered on the farm Durban, north of Grootfontein, was convicted of the farmer’s killing and sentenced to an effective 25-year jail term yesterday. He had been on trial in the Otjiwarongo Regional Court, where Magistrate Christie Liebenberg convicted him on counts of murder and housebreaking with intent to steal and theft yesterday.On the murder charge, Ubiteb was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.Five years imprisonment were added to this for the housebreaking and theft.Because Ubiteb is serving a two-year jail term for having escaped from custody before his trial could be finalised, the 25-year sentence that he received yesterday will only start running once the sentence for the escape had been served out, in October next year.Ubiteb did not testify in his own defence during his trial.However, in January 2001, when he first pleaded in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court, he admitted that he had been involved in an attack on Rucker at his farm and in the break-in and theft that happened at the same time.Ubiteb also claimed that he was not alone, but that a certain Abraham and Joseph had carried out the crimes with him.Ubiteb was the only suspect to be arrested and charged, though.By the time he was taken into custody in November 2000, the Police investigation into Rucker’s killing had not yet netted any suspects.As it was, Ubiteb was arrested with suspected stolen property in his possession after another burglary at farm Durban.Magistrate Liebenberg heard during the trial that while being interrogated under arrest, Ubiteb started making admissions to the Police about the April 2000 incidents at the farm, too, and eventually also directed investigators to Okakarara, where some items that were thought to have been stolen from the farm were recovered from people to whom Ubiteb claimed to have sold them.One of these items was a saddle, imported from Austria, which one of Rucker’s neighbours identified during the trial as having belonged to the murdered farmer.That neighbour was one of the people who discovered the aged farmer’s decaying corpse hidden under carton boxes behind an outbuilding on the farm on April 21 2000.Concerned neighbours had gone to investigate after noticing that it was uncharacteristically quiet at the farm.It was later found that Rucker had died from multiple skull fractures.In his plea in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court, Ubiteb said he and his two companions had fought with Rucker after they found him at a gate to his farm.He claimed that they had beaten and kicked the farmer, but that he heard that Rucker had died only after he had been arrested.The prosecution against Ubiteb was conducted by Public Prosecutor Muriel van Zyl.Titus Mbaeva represented Ubiteb on instructions from the Directorate of Legal Aid.He had been on trial in the Otjiwarongo Regional Court, where Magistrate Christie Liebenberg convicted him on counts of murder and housebreaking with intent to steal and theft yesterday.On the murder charge, Ubiteb was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.Five years imprisonment were added to this for the housebreaking and theft.Because Ubiteb is serving a two-year jail term for having escaped from custody before his trial could be finalised, the 25-year sentence that he received yesterday will only start running once the sentence for the escape had been served out, in October next year.Ubiteb did not testify in his own defence during his trial.However, in January 2001, when he first pleaded in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court, he admitted that he had been involved in an attack on Rucker at his farm and in the break-in and theft that happened at the same time.Ubiteb also claimed that he was not alone, but that a certain Abraham and Joseph had carried out the crimes with him.Ubiteb was the only suspect to be arrested and charged, though.By the time he was taken into custody in November 2000, the Police investigation into Rucker’s killing had not yet netted any suspects.As it was, Ubiteb was arrested with suspected stolen property in his possession after another burglary at farm Durban.Magistrate Liebenberg heard during the trial that while being interrogated under arrest, Ubiteb started making admissions to the Police about the April 2000 incidents at the farm, too, and eventually also directed investigators to Okakarara, where some items that were thought to have been stolen from the farm were recovered from people to whom Ubiteb claimed to have sold them.One of these items was a saddle, imported from Austria, which one of Rucker’s neighbours identified during the trial as having belonged to the murdered farmer.That neighbour was one of the people who discovered the aged farmer’s decaying corpse hidden under carton boxes behind an outbuilding on the farm on April 21 2000.Concerned neighbours had gone to investigate after noticing that it was uncharacteristically quiet at the farm.It was later found that Rucker had died from multiple skull fractures.In his plea in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court, Ubiteb said he and his two companions had fought with Rucker after they found him at a gate to his farm.He claimed that they had beaten and kicked the farmer, but that he heard that Rucker had died only after he had been arrested.The prosecution against Ubiteb was conducted by Public Prosecutor Muriel van Zyl.Titus Mbaeva represented Ubiteb on instructions from the Directorate of Legal Aid.