Child murder confession hangs in the balance

A RULING that could determine whether former security guard Lesley Kukame walks free from his trial on child rape and murder charges is set to be delivered in the High Court in Windhoek at the start of next week.

The prosecution’s case against Kukame (29), who is accused of abducting, raping and murdering a three-and-a-half-year-old child in Katutura between February 7 and 10 2005, might be hanging by a thread after fresh doubts were cast last week on a confession that Kukame wrote on February 11 2005 following a lie detector test and lengthy interrogation session. The confession has become the main piece of evidence in the case against him.In the ruling that Judge Kato van Niekerk is scheduled to give on Monday, she will revisit an earlier ruling in which she found that the confession could be used as evidence in Kukame’s trial. Since that ruling was given, though, a full transcript of a video recording of former Police detective Nelius Becker’s questioning of Kukame before the confession was made has become available – and this has prompted renewed claims from Kukame’s defence lawyer, Ivo dos Santos, that the confession written by his client was not a statement that was made freely and voluntarily and without undue influence.In terms of the Criminal Procedure Act, evidence of a confession made by an accused person is admissible in that person’s trial only if it had been proven that the confession had been freely and voluntarily made, that the person was in his or her sound and sober senses when the statement was made, and that the person had not been unduly influenced to make the confession.The transcript of Kukame’s questioning by Becker indicates that Kukame was repeatedly exhorted to tell the truth, and told that it would be better for himself and be counted in his favour if he co-operated and told the truth.At that stage Kukame was still denying that he was responsible for the death of the girl, ‘M’, whose body was discovered on February 10 2005 in a room next to the disused Katutura Cinema Hall, where Kukame had been on duty as a security guard over the days that ‘M’ had been missing from a house near the cinema hall.What Becker by implication told Kukame was that nobody could to anything to him if he only confessed, Dos Santos argued before Judge Van Niekerk on Friday. He argued that Becker had also misled Kukame by for example telling him that he had been seen by people who could identify him.It could not be doubted that Kukame was influenced to make the confession that he finally wrote, Dos Santos argued. He charged that Becker had worked in a calculated and improper manner to remove Kukame’s will, which was to deny the suspicions against him, and replace it with a will to confess.State advocate Dominic Lisulo argued on Thursday that Kukame had not been forced to make the confession, and that he had given a voluntary statement. He also told the Judge that in his view it would not have the effect of making the trial unfair or be detrimental to the administration of justice if the confession remained part of the evidence in the trial.Dos Santos took an opposing view on Friday. ‘Will there be a failure of justice? A dismal failure,’ he said in connection with the issue whether it would affect the fairness of Kukame’s trial if the confession was allowed to be used as evidence against his client.Kukame has been kept in custody for the past four years and two months.