Curtain lifts on shootout

A SEVENTH suspected member of a gang of armed robbers caught in a deadly shootout with the Police in Windhoek on Thursday was found hiding in the gambling house five hours after the Police had shot dead two members of the gang, wounded another two and arrested a further two suspects.

Three of the men are scheduled to appear in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court today.The Police said yesterday that what was initially believed to be a six-man gang that had robbed the Pool Bar later turned out to have had seven members.The seventh member of the group was found hiding inside the gambling house more than five hours after the failed heist, said the Windhoek Police Station commander, Chief Inspector Robert Sanjahi.The man apparently hid behind a curtain when a shootout started between his alleged accomplices and the Police at around 11h00.He remained hidden until the Police found him there at 17h00.After the shootout, the Police closed the Pool Bar and stationed officers in front of the building to keep anyone from interfering with the crime scene. Two of the suspects were shot dead, while two are still in hospital and are said to be in a critical state.The Police yesterday released the names of the two deceased suspects. They were Tuhafeni Kakololo (39), and David Ndume (25).Kakololo would still have been in prison if he did not successfully appeal against a 20-year jail term and conviction on charges of attempted murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances that he received in the Windhoek Regional Court eight years ago.He was found guilty and sent to jail for 20 years on March 27 2001. His conviction was later set aside on appeal in the High Court, after it was found that an irregularity had occurred in his trial because he was not legally represented.The High Court ordered that Kakololo had to be retried in the Regional Court on the same charges. Kakololo was still awaiting that retrial at the time of his death.The charges that he was to face for a second time date back almost ten years. Kakololo was charged with – and previously convicted of – taking part in an armed robbery at Windhoek’s Tré Supermarket on April 24 1999.In that robbery, the owner of the supermarket, Sindinio Tré, was shot in his shoulder as a gang of robbers managed to get way with N$160 000 from his shop.One of the men wounded in the gunfight with the Police last week is also a veteran of the country’s criminal justice system. This one-eyed suspect, who can only be identified after he has made a first appearance in court, is a former associate of the late armed robber Thomas Nandjebo, alias Bob Green, who died in a shootout with the Police after a robbery in northern Namibia on November 5 2003.Like Nandjebo, this frequently arrested suspect was one of the six alleged members of a robber gang who were acquitted in the High Court in late March 2000 on charges of murder and armed robbery that stemmed from the killing of a Swakopmund gambling house owner during a robbery at the coastal town in February 1997.