2nd Brakwater heist case postponed again

THE case against five men accused of involvement in a record-setting cash-in-transit heist in the Brakwater area near Windhoek in the last days of 2004 has been postponed for a third time for the Prosecutor-General to take a decision about the further prosecution of the matter.

The five men made their latest court appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court before Magistrate Desmond Beukes on Thursday last week. All of them remain free on bail until their next scheduled court appearance, which is now set for August 3.Magistrate Beukes directed that this would be the last postponement for the PG’s decision.Appearing before him on Thursday were Jan Johannes Julius, George Jambeinge, Matheus Hauwanga, Benedictus Kasimbingwe and Elikana Nghimwena.Still absent from the dock, and remaining on the run from the Police, is an alleged main suspect in the case, Jason Awene, also known as Kilingi.Julius was the first of the suspects to be arrested after robbers allegedly struck in the Brakwater area outside Windhoek at around 04h00 on December 29 2004, while Julius and a colleague employed with a security company in Windhoek were on their way from Windhoek to the coast with a load of cash that had to be delivered to banks at their destination.It is alleged that Julius stopped the cash-in-transit vehicle to pick up a hitch-hiker, who may have been Awene, when they left Windhoek.The hiker soon turned on Julius’s colleague, it is claimed, by spraying him with teargas and pointing a firearm at him and Julius and ordering that the vehicle be pulled off the road.The van was then robbed.Some N$5,76 million in cash was stolen during the incident.It is the largest amount of money yet stolen in Namibia in any single armed robbery.By the end of January last year, the Police had managed to recover some N$3,3 million of the stolen money.The Police claimed at the time that N$1,35 million was recovered in South Africa, allegedly after a girlfriend of Kasimbingwe, who has a farm in the Karasburg area, had approached a bank at Kakamas in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province to have money put into a safe deposit box.During the hearing of a bail application by Julius, Jambeinge and Kasimbingwe in April last year, a Police officer also testified that more than a million Namibia dollars that had been part of the stolen money had also been found in the boot of a car that belonged to Jambeinge.Awene is suspected to have fled from Namibia, heading to South Africa, in early January last year.All of them remain free on bail until their next scheduled court appearance, which is now set for August 3.Magistrate Beukes directed that this would be the last postponement for the PG’s decision.Appearing before him on Thursday were Jan Johannes Julius, George Jambeinge, Matheus Hauwanga, Benedictus Kasimbingwe and Elikana Nghimwena.Still absent from the dock, and remaining on the run from the Police, is an alleged main suspect in the case, Jason Awene, also known as Kilingi.Julius was the first of the suspects to be arrested after robbers allegedly struck in the Brakwater area outside Windhoek at around 04h00 on December 29 2004, while Julius and a colleague employed with a security company in Windhoek were on their way from Windhoek to the coast with a load of cash that had to be delivered to banks at their destination.It is alleged that Julius stopped the cash-in-transit vehicle to pick up a hitch-hiker, who may have been Awene, when they left Windhoek.The hiker soon turned on Julius’s colleague, it is claimed, by spraying him with teargas and pointing a firearm at him and Julius and ordering that the vehicle be pulled off the road.The van was then robbed.Some N$5,76 million in cash was stolen during the incident.It is the largest amount of money yet stolen in Namibia in any single armed robbery.By the end of January last year, the Police had managed to recover some N$3,3 million of the stolen money.The Police claimed at the time that N$1,35 million was recovered in South Africa, allegedly after a girlfriend of Kasimbingwe, who has a farm in the Karasburg area, had approached a bank at Kakamas in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province to have money put into a safe deposit box.During the hearing of a bail application by Julius, Jambeinge and Kasimbingwe in April last year, a Police officer also testified that more than a million Namibia dollars that had been part of the stolen money had also been found in the boot of a car that belonged to Jambeinge.Awene is suspected to have fled from Namibia, heading to South Africa, in early January last year.