In a landmark ruling, magistrate Gaynor Poulton on Friday sentenced Jandre Dippenaar to 15 years in prison on six counts of murder in connection with the fatal road collision in which he was involved in December 2014.
Dippenaar’s case is the first in Namibia’s legal history jn which a road accident has led to a murder conviction, rather than culpable homicide.
The sentence, delivered in the Swakopmund Regional Court, comes nearly a decade after the fatal collision that claimed the lives of six people near Henties Bay on 29 December 2014.
Dippenaar was also sentenced to pay a fine of N$8 000 for reckless driving and a fine of N$2 000 for driving without a valid licence.
He was found guilty of overtaking vehicles at high speed on a blind rise near Henties Bay, in a manoeuvre that led to a head-on collision with another vehicle.
The crash resulted in the deaths of three passengers in Dippenaar’s car and three members of a visiting German family.
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