Convicted Outjo murderers to be sentenced in April

Two prisoners convicted of murdering an Outjo resident during a violent house robbery in October 2014 are due to be sentenced in the Windhoek High Court in April.

The two convicted men, Lourens Aib (33) and Hendrik !Nowoseb (34), are both currently serving prison terms for crimes committed after the house robbery and murder that took place at Outjo on 25 October 2014, judge Nate Ndauendapo was informed after finding Aib and !Nowoseb guilty in September last year.

During a presentence hearing before Ndauendapo on Friday, defence lawyer Jermaine Muchali, who is representing Aib, suggested a combined sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment for Aib on the four charges on which he was found guilty.

Aib is serving a 14-year prison term on a count of housebreaking with intent to steal and theft.

He received that sentence in November 2019.

!Nowoseb’s defence lawyer, Natji Tjirera, asked the judge to order that the sentences !Nowoseb is to receive be served concurrently with an affective jail term of 44 years, which !Nowoseb is currently serving.

!Nowoseb was sentenced in the Windhoek High Court on charges of murder and attempted murder in August 2017.

He was sentenced after he was convicted of attempting to murder his girlfriend in December 2014, and then murdering her by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife while she was being treated in a hospital at Outjo.

Ndauendapo has convicted Aib and !Nowoseb on charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and rape.

Aib, !Nowoseb and a third accused, Ferdinand Hangula, who died while their trial was under way, were accused of attacking a woman in a tuck shop at the house where she was staying at Outjo and attempting to murder the woman by strangling her until she lost consciousness.

They were also accused of murdering Outjo resident Gert Koekemoer (71), who died after he had been stabbed with a knife when he was attacked in his house, which was next to the tuck shop.

Ndauendapo convicted Aib and !Nowoseb after finding that Aib admitted in a statement made to the police that he was present during the robbery and that he helped his co-accused hold the woman during the attack.

He noted in his judgement that !Nowoseb made admissions to three state witnesses, including a witness he told he had stabbed Koekemoer in the neck and a witness he told he had killed a man after attacking him in his house.

Muchali argued on Friday that Aib was young when the crimes were committed, and had been under the influence of Hangula, who was more than 10 years older than him, and also under the influence of !Nowoseb.

Deputy prosecutor general Karin Esterhuizen, representing the state, argued that Aib and !Nowoseb were convicted of violent crimes that were committed in a house where their victims were supposed to be safe.

Koekemoer was killed in cold blood, and Aib and !Nowoseb “showed a complete disregard for human life”, Esterhuizen argued.

She proposed a sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment on the murder charge, a jail term of 15 years on the count of rape, and sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment on each of the charges of attempted murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

Ndauendapo postponed the sentencing to 8 April.

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