Crime suspect commits suicide

A SUSPECT being investigated by the Namibian Police’s Serious Crime Unit is alleged to have committed suicide as detectives were closing in on him for a possible arrest yesterday afternoon.

The Commanding Officer of the Police Public Relations and Liaison Division, Chief Inspector Hieronymus Goraseb, said yesterday that the suspect, at that stage only known as ‘Charlie’, shot himself with a 7,65 mm pistol as members of the Serious Crime Unit were approaching him in Ombili, in the northern part of Katutura. Goraseb said the Serious Crime Unit had been investigating information that the suspect was in possession of an illegal firearm.The man’s identity was still being investigated yesterday.He was estimated to be around 21 years old.The incident is the second claimed suicide to involve members of the crack detective unit in less than two weeks.On Wednesday evening last week, Serious Crime Unit members witnessed the alleged gunshot suicide of a suspect who was already under arrest.In that incident, Lazarus Kandara, Chief Executive Officer of Avid Investment Corporation – the company at the centre of a financial scandal over the disappearance of a N$30 million Social Security Commission investment – is claimed to have turned a gun on himself after Serious Crime Unit members had taken him to his house to collect personal items before he was to be locked up in the Windhoek Police Station holding cells.Goraseb said the Serious Crime Unit had been investigating information that the suspect was in possession of an illegal firearm.The man’s identity was still being investigated yesterday.He was estimated to be around 21 years old.The incident is the second claimed suicide to involve members of the crack detective unit in less than two weeks.On Wednesday evening last week, Serious Crime Unit members witnessed the alleged gunshot suicide of a suspect who was already under arrest.In that incident, Lazarus Kandara, Chief Executive Officer of Avid Investment Corporation – the company at the centre of a financial scandal over the disappearance of a N$30 million Social Security Commission investment – is claimed to have turned a gun on himself after Serious Crime Unit members had taken him to his house to collect personal items before he was to be locked up in the Windhoek Police Station holding cells.