Child murder suspect sent for mental checks

CHILD rape and murder suspect Willem Louw has been referred for psychiatric observation to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial.

Louw (31), who is accused of kidnapping, raping and murdering a six-year-old girl, Rachel Hamutundu, at Swakopmund on January 31, and of committing a sexual act with a three-year-old girl, also at Swakopmund, the next day, made a third pre-trial appearance in the High Court in Windhoek on Friday. His defence counsel, Jorge Neves, asked Acting Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe to send Louw for psychiatric observation.Neves told the court that answers Louw had given him in consultations that he had with him “did not make sense”.That, in Neves’s opinion, indicated Louw might have problems with understanding court proceedings and his lawyer’s instructions.Acting Judge Mtambanengwe issued an order that Louw’s mental state should be examined by a State psychiatrist to determine if he has the capacity to understand court proceedings.Louw was told that he has to attend another pre-trial hearing on November 17.He will remain in custody in the meantime.When he pleaded to the charges against him in the Swakopmund Magistrate’s Court on February 14, Louw confessed that he had beaten Hamutundu to death.He told the court that after he had spent much of the day drinking beer – he had heard earlier that day that he was being dismissed from his job as a security guard – he found Hamutundu at the municipal flats in Swakopmund’s Tamariskia area where she lived.According to Louw, the girl walked with him from the flats to the town’s sewage works, where he first raped her and then, after she had started to cry, smashed her head against a concrete pillar several times.He left the scene to go to a bar, and later returned to the scene to see if Hamutundu was dead, he said.The urge to have sex was what had motivated him to take Hamutundu from her home, he said.”I know I did wrong,” Louw told the Magistrate.His defence counsel, Jorge Neves, asked Acting Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe to send Louw for psychiatric observation.Neves told the court that answers Louw had given him in consultations that he had with him “did not make sense”.That, in Neves’s opinion, indicated Louw might have problems with understanding court proceedings and his lawyer’s instructions.Acting Judge Mtambanengwe issued an order that Louw’s mental state should be examined by a State psychiatrist to determine if he has the capacity to understand court proceedings.Louw was told that he has to attend another pre-trial hearing on November 17.He will remain in custody in the meantime.When he pleaded to the charges against him in the Swakopmund Magistrate’s Court on February 14, Louw confessed that he had beaten Hamutundu to death.He told the court that after he had spent much of the day drinking beer – he had heard earlier that day that he was being dismissed from his job as a security guard – he found Hamutundu at the municipal flats in Swakopmund’s Tamariskia area where she lived.According to Louw, the girl walked with him from the flats to the town’s sewage works, where he first raped her and then, after she had started to cry, smashed her head against a concrete pillar several times.He left the scene to go to a bar, and later returned to the scene to see if Hamutundu was dead, he said.The urge to have sex was what had motivated him to take Hamutundu from her home, he said.”I know I did wrong,” Louw told the Magistrate.