Burnt woman testifies from hospital bed

LYING in hospital with third-degree burns to most of her body, Jacqueline Namases (33) yesterday testified before Swakopmund Magistrate Bernhard Tjatjara in the trial of her former lover.

Namases has been in the Swakopmund State Hospital since January 25, and it could be another month or more before she can leave.Magistrate Tjatjara yesterday sentenced Victor Tjombe (34) to five years in prison for the attempted murder of Namases, and three years for the attempted murder of her aunt, Lydia Namases. The sentences will run concurrently and he will therefore spend the next five years in prison.It all started when Tjombe found a former school sweetheart’s number on Namases’s cellphone, she told the Magistrate.Tjombe called the number and argued with the ex-boyfriend until the latter called him a ‘loser’ and put down the phone in Tjombe’s ear. ‘He asked me what I was doing with this ‘moffie’ and then started beating me with his fists. He dragged me into the room, threw me on the bed and we started wrestling,’ a tearful Namases told the Magistrate.According to her, Tjombe then wrapped duct tape around her nose and mouth. Namases managed to send a text message to her aunt, Lydia Namases: ‘I’m being killed. Help me.’Not long after that, her aunt arrived and told Tjombe to leave. Tjombe did so, but returned soon afterwards, Namases testified.He went into the kitchen, put paint thinners in a bucket and returned to the two women. According to Namases, Tjombe poured the thinners over them and set the room on fire before leaving the house.She testified that Tjombe held the door shut from the outside so that she and her aunt could not escape.Eventually, Lydia Namases managed to force her way out, calling for her niece to run out. Tjombe hit her aunt in the face before running away, Namases testified.In the meantime, Jacqueline ran out of the house, but the thinners covering her body caught fire.’I fell onto the sand in the yard, but there is not a lot of sand. I was still burning. I ran to the tap and neighbours came to help me to put the fire out on me with the water. They also used the water to put the fire out in the house, and this is when they called the Police,’ she said.The Police arrested Tjombe later that same day when he returned to Namases’s home and entered it through a hole in the roof.