Cow theft trumps rape in sentencing stakes

RAPE: ten years’ imprisonment.

Theft of one heifer: twenty years in jail.The severe – and some would argue disproportionate – punishments prescribed for livestock thieves in Namibia’s controversial Stock Theft Act are continuing to take their toll on offenders.In the Windhoek Regional Court last Friday, a farmworker who admitted that he had stolen a heifer that belonged to his employer was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.In the same court on Thursday last week, a young man convicted of raping a woman almost 40 years older than him was sentenced to a ten-year jail term for his crime.Tuaandi Maiseuanaani (33) was working as a sheep herdsman at a farm in the Okahandja district when he stole a heifer, valued at N$4 000, on February 21 this year. He faces the next 20 years in jail over that theft.In the rape case finalised in the Windhoek Regional Court on Thursday, a 23-year-old man was sent to prison for ten years over a rape that he committed at a farm east of Windhoek on July 8 2005, when he was still 17 years old.Maiseuanaani pleaded guilty to a stock theft charge in the Okahandja Magistrate’s Court on March 23. He told Magistrate Tuvoye Nuule that he killed and slaughtered a heifer he had found in the veld while looking after his employer’s sheep. He wanted to sell the meat, he said.Maiseuanaani’s case was transferred to the Windhoek Regional Court after his plea. In that court he told Magistrate Cosmos Endjala that he was the father of two children, aged eight and three, and the sole breadwinner for his family. He was earning N$900 a month before his arrest, he also said.In terms of the Stock Theft Act, after it was amended in 2004, someone convicted of stealing livestock valued at more than N$500, with that conviction being the person’s first for stock theft, is to be sentenced to not less than 20 years’ imprisonment without the option of a fine, unless a court finds that substantial and compelling circumstances exist which justify a less severe sentence.In Maiseuanaani’s case the court did not find such circumstances to be present, and the prescribed term of 20 years in jail was his fate.The two heaviest prison terms prescribed in the Stock Theft Act were declared unconstitutional in a judgement of the High Court on March 10 this year.The Prosecutor General has however lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court against that judgement. In the PG’s view this appeal means that the Stock Theft Act’s sentencing provisions remain in force until the Supreme Court has pronounced itself on their constitutionality.In the rape case finalised last week, the young suspect denied the charge at the start of his trial in November last year.During the trial, the complainant in the matter, who was 54 years old at the time of the incident, told the court she was walking on her way to a farm where she wanted to visit friends when the suspect came from behind, followed her along a path, and then attacked her.He hit her with a fist and, after he had ordered her to walk towards a riverbed, he raped her, she testified.When he testified in his own defence before Magistrate Leopold Hangalo the suspect initially claimed he had intercourse with the woman with her consent. Under cross-examination from Public Prosecutor Tania Tait, though, he finally admitted he had raped the woman.Testifying in mitigation of sentence after he had been found guilty he said he was feeling bad over the incident and had apologised to the complainant. He further told the magistrate that it is ‘harsh in prison’, and asked to be given a suspended sentence.With the sentencing Magistrate Hangalo told him that the big age difference between him and the complainant showed he had no respect for his elders. Society cannot accept his lack of respect for older people, the magistrate said.He sentenced the young man in line with the prescribed sentence of ten years in jail which the Combating of Rape Act of 2000 sets for adult offenders found guilty of this sort of rape.