85-year jail sentence for triple murderer

THE record books were rewritten with the sentencing of triple killer Tuhafeni Kutamudi in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

By sentencing Kutamudi to an effective term of 85 years’ imprisonment for the three murders that he committed at the Ohangwena Region village of Onhuno on September 4 and 5 2002, Judge Mavis Gibson has imposed the longest jail term, short of life imprisonment, yet to have been handed down in a Namibian court. Kutamudi, a 29-year-old, poorly educated father of a four-year-old child, was convicted on three counts of murder on Monday.He had been accused of stabbing three of his neighbours – his 65-year-old aunt, Sylvia Ndahafa Frans, her neighbour, Policapus Haitale Paulus (58), and her daughter, Eunice Kambwali (22) – to death.During his trial in the High Court, Kutamudi denied having any knowledge of the stabbings that claimed the three victims’ lives.In a statement that he made to a Magistrate shortly after he was arrested on September 5 2002, he had however confessed that he was responsible for the killings.That statement is still the only evidence on record to give an indication of what may have prompted the stabbings.Kutamudi had stated at the time that he stabbed Haitale after an argument between the two men over an omukonda knife – a traditional, double-edged dagger – that Kutamudi said he had lent to Haitale escalated into a physical fight.He also stabbed Frans when she tried to intervene in the fight.Kambwali was the last to be killed, when she returned home the next morning, having spent the previous night somewhere else.He killed her because he was still annoyed at that stage, Kutamudi told the Magistrate.On Monday Kutamudi’s defence counsel, Arthur Pickering, described his client as someone who was a victim of his own circumstances.Pickering told Judge Gibson that Kutamudi had received a school education only up to Grade 2, that he grew up with his grandparents and hardly saw his parents as he was growing up, and that, lacking the discipline normally instilled by formal schooling and employment, he had led the life of a drifter up to the time of the killings.During the sentencing, Judge Gibson also referred to the past deprivations that Kutamudi is said to have suffered.”The lack of comfort and support from your own parents must have added to your cold and systematic brutality when you felt aggrieved on this occasion concerning a dispute about a traditional knife, the omukonda,” she remarked.”You then turned that very minor dispute into an utter outrage against people whom you regarded, and the neighbourhood saw, as part of your family.”Stating that “the horrific nature” of the crimes was clear from photographs of the victims’ bodies submitted to the court as evidence, the Judge added: “The sight of the wounds on those bodies leaves the court in utter revulsion against your actions.”She added that it seemed that Kutamudi had set out to wipe out the occupants of the victims’ homestead, especially because Kambwali was killed hours after the first two victims, when one would have expected the passions that may have prompted the first killings to have subsided.”It is inconceivable to think that a normal human being could be capable of such utter acts of barbarity on another human being,” Judge Gibson commented.”The coldness and inanimate nature of your actions are beyond comprehension.”lethal, double-edged and vicious Judge Gibson also had some remarks to make about the weapon that was used to carry out the killings.In the past, such knives may have had a legitimate purpose for something like hunting, but this is no longer the case, she said.She added: “In my view, the possession and carrying of such weapons – lethal, double-edged and vicious-looking implements – should not be permitted at all, or not in public places.”When a case like Kutamudi’s came before a court, with “the sickening effect of a slaughter of this magnitude on the unsuspecting, weak and innocent victims”, the court was moved to impose a sentence that would reassure society that people who committed such acts would pay an appropriate and just penalty, imposed vigorously and without fear or favour, the Judge said.She imposed a thirty-year prison term for the murder of Haitale, a second thirty-year term for the murder of Haitale, of which ten years will run concurrently with the first term, and a 35-year term for the murder of Kambwali.That amounts to 85 years’ imprisonment.State advocate Rolanda Gertze conducted the prosecution during Kutamudi’s trial.Kutamudi, a 29-year-old, poorly educated father of a four-year-old child, was convicted on three counts of murder on Monday.He had been accused of stabbing three of his neighbours – his 65-year-old aunt, Sylvia Ndahafa Frans, her neighbour, Policapus Haitale Paulus (58), and her daughter, Eunice Kambwali (22) – to death. During his trial in the High Court, Kutamudi denied having any knowledge of the stabbings that claimed the three victims’ lives.In a statement that he made to a Magistrate shortly after he was arrested on September 5 2002, he had however confessed that he was responsible for the killings.That statement is still the only evidence on record to give an indication of what may have prompted the stabbings.Kutamudi had stated at the time that he stabbed Haitale after an argument between the two men over an omukonda knife – a traditional, double-edged dagger – that Kutamudi said he had lent to Haitale escalated into a physical fight.He also stabbed Frans when she tried to intervene in the fight.Kambwali was the last to be killed, when she returned home the next morning, having spent the previous night somewhere else.He killed her because he was still annoyed at that stage, Kutamudi told the Magistrate.On Monday Kutamudi’s defence counsel, Arthur Pickering, described his client as someone who was a victim of his own circumstances.Pickering told Judge Gibson that Kutamudi had received a school education only up to Grade 2, that he grew up with his grandparents and hardly saw his parents as he was growing up, and that, lacking the discipline normally instilled by formal schooling and employment, he had led the life of a drifter up to the time of the killings.During the sentencing, Judge Gibson also referred to the past deprivations that Kutamudi is said to have suffered.”The lack of comfort and support from your own parents must have added to your cold and systematic brutality when you felt aggrieved on this occasion concerning a dispute about a traditional knife, the omukonda,” she remarked.”You then turned that very minor dispute into an utter outrage against people whom you regarded, and the neighbourhood saw, as part of your family.”Stating that “the horrific nature” of the crimes was clear from photographs of the victims’ bodies submitted to the court as evidence, the Judge added: “The sight of the wounds on those bodies leaves the court in utter revulsion against your actions.”She added that it seemed that Kutamudi had set out to wipe out the occupants of the victims’ homestead, especially because Kambwali was killed hours after the first two victims, when one would have expected the passions that may have prompted the first killings to have subsided.”It is inconceivable to think that a normal human being could be capable of such utter acts of barbarity on another human being,” Judge Gibson commented.”The coldness and inanimate nature of your actions are beyond comprehension.”lethal, double-edged and vicious Judge Gibson also had some remarks to make about the weapon that was used to carry out the killings.In the past, such knives may have had a legitimate purpose for something like hunting, but this is no longer the case, she said.She added: “In my view, the possession and carrying of such weapons – lethal, double-edged and vicious-looking implements – should not be permitted at all, or not in public places.”When a case like Kutamudi’s came before a court, with “the sickening effect of a slaughter of this magnitude on the unsuspecting, weak and innocent victims”, the court was moved to impose a sentence that would reassure society tha
t people who committed such acts would pay an appropriate and just penalty, imposed vigorously and without fear or favour, the Judge said.She imposed a thirty-year prison term for the murder of Haitale, a second thirty-year term for the murder of Haitale, of which ten years will run concurrently with the first term, and a 35-year term for the murder of Kambwali.That amounts to 85 years’ imprisonment.State advocate Rolanda Gertze conducted the prosecution during Kutamudi’s trial.