A woman accused of murdering two people in an arson attack in Windhoek three years ago is expected to testify in her own defence when her trial continues in March.
The trial of Mecthilde Karomo (33) is scheduled to continue in the Windhoek High Court from 9 March, after being postponed by judge Claudia Claasen on Monday.
Claasen postponed the trial after deputy prosecutor general Dominic Lisulo closed the state’s case against Karomo.
The trial started near the end of May, when Karomo denied guilt on two charges of murder and a count of arson.
Karomo is accused of murdering two people, Leonard Haupindi (36) and Annastasia Matende (31), in Windhoek during the early morning hours of 26 December 2022.
She is also facing a charge of arson.
Haupindi and Matende died in a fire that Karomo allegedly started.
They were both in Haupindi’s house in the Okahandja Park area of Windhoek when the dwelling was destroyed by flames. The state is alleging that the blaze had been started by Karomo.
The state’s last witness in the trial, Tobias Hainyeko constituency regional councillor and National Council member Christopher Likuwa, testified on Monday that Okahandja Park community members called him to a scene where they said two people had been killed in a fire.
Likuwa said after his arrival at the scene, people pointed to a neighbouring house when he asked who had burnt the house that was destroyed in the fire.
After he knocked at the door of the neighbouring house, Karomo opened it, Likuwa said.
He said he asked Karomo inside her house whether she had started the fire, and after he repeated the question she told him the man who lived in the burnt house was her boyfriend and that he had brought another woman home.
Karomo also recounted that she had knocked at the door of her boyfriend’s house, and after no one came to open the door she went around the house, moved a zinc sheet with which the house was constructed, opened a gas bottle and set the house on fire, Likuwa said.
A statement that Karomo made to a police officer after her arrest was ruled admissible as evidence in her trial in September.
In the statement, Karomo said she was angered when she heard Haupindi talking to a woman he had brought home during the evening of 25 December 2022.
Karomo said Haupindi punched her during an argument about the woman.
After hearing the sound of her boyfriend’s house door closing, she thought he and the other woman had left, and she then decided to set his house on fire, Karomo said.
Having started the fire, she went to her own house and slept, Karomo recounted.
She said she woke up when a neighbour, who had seen the fire spread to her house, threw stones at the house. The neighbour also tried to put out the fire at Haupindi’s house, she said.
Karomo, who is being represented by defence lawyer Mbanga Siyomunji, is free on bail in an amount of N$3 000, which was granted to her in May 2024.
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