Da Silva sentencing countdown starts

THE High Court trial of Manuel Alberto da Silva, who was last week convicted of murder for shooting his girlfriend to death in Windhoek on New Year’s Eve 2003, is scheduled to end on Tuesday next week, when he is to be sentenced.

A sentence of effectively 12 years’ imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend, Monaliza de Kock (23), would be appropriate, Da Silva’s defence lawyer, Ivo dos Santos, argued before Judge Collins Parker as Da Silva’s trial entered its last stage in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday. Judge Parker convicted Da Silva, a 30-year-old father of two children, of murder with a direct intention to kill on Thursday last week.Da Silva killed De Kock, with whom he had a daughter who was one year old at the time, with a succession of gunshots to her head during a quarrel over De Kock’s plans to attend a New Year’s Eve party.De Kock was killed on the grounds of Ella du Plessis High School in Khomasdal with a .22 revolver that had been stolen from a security guard at Rundu earlier that month.While Dos Santos argued yesterday that De Kock’s death was not brutal, savage or an extended suffering, State advocate Dominic Lisulo strongly disagreed.To the contrary of what Dos Santos was suggesting, Lisulo argued, the killing of De Kock was indeed a brutal murder, and barbaric in a way.To fire five bullets into someone, aimed at a most vulnerable part of the body, the head, is brutal and savage, Lisulo charged.Da Silva told Judge Parker from the witness stand that he had been spurred on by his emotions as a consequence of the argument he had with De Kock when the shooting took place.At that point of their argument – when De Kock made it clear to him that she would be going out for the evening and that she would be meeting a man that Da Silva suspected she was having an affair with – he was feeling betrayed, belittled, and that his trust had been abused, Da Silva said.He has written to De Kock’s family to express his sympathies to them and to apologise to them, and they have accepted his apology, and he wanted to again apologise to them publicly, Da Silva told the Judge.”They have to forgive me if they can,” he said.”I feel bad; I feel really bad,” he said when Dos Santos asked him how he felt about De Kock’s death more than three and a half years after the event.No single day passes by without him thinking “how really bad the situation is,” Da Silva added.Dos Santos argued that Da Silva had committed a murder that was not premeditated or for any personal gain, that he had suffered emotional turmoil in the weeks leading to the incident as a result of difficulties in his relationship with De Kock, and that he has shown remorse consistently since his arrest at a Police roadblock near Rundu on the day after the murder.Da Silva is not a danger to society, and he can be rehabilitated, Dos Santos said.He suggested that, if the more than three and a half years that Da Silva has spent in custody before the trial was finalised are taken into account, a sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment, of which six years are suspended, would be appropriate.According to Lisulo, though, Da Silva’s conduct showed that he has to be removed from society for a relatively long time.He suggested a 25-year jail term.Judge Parker convicted Da Silva, a 30-year-old father of two children, of murder with a direct intention to kill on Thursday last week.Da Silva killed De Kock, with whom he had a daughter who was one year old at the time, with a succession of gunshots to her head during a quarrel over De Kock’s plans to attend a New Year’s Eve party.De Kock was killed on the grounds of Ella du Plessis High School in Khomasdal with a .22 revolver that had been stolen from a security guard at Rundu earlier that month.While Dos Santos argued yesterday that De Kock’s death was not brutal, savage or an extended suffering, State advocate Dominic Lisulo strongly disagreed.To the contrary of what Dos Santos was suggesting, Lisulo argued, the killing of De Kock was indeed a brutal murder, and barbaric in a way.To fire five bullets into someone, aimed at a most vulnerable part of the body, the head, is brutal and savage, Lisulo charged.Da Silva told Judge Parker from the witness stand that he had been spurred on by his emotions as a consequence of the argument he had with De Kock when the shooting took place.At that point of their argument – when De Kock made it clear to him that she would be going out for the evening and that she would be meeting a man that Da Silva suspected she was having an affair with – he was feeling betrayed, belittled, and that his trust had been abused, Da Silva said.He has written to De Kock’s family to express his sympathies to them and to apologise to them, and they have accepted his apology, and he wanted to again apologise to them publicly, Da Silva told the Judge.”They have to forgive me if they can,” he said.”I feel bad; I feel really bad,” he said when Dos Santos asked him how he felt about De Kock’s death more than three and a half years after the event.No single day passes by without him thinking “how really bad the situation is,” Da Silva added.Dos Santos argued that Da Silva had committed a murder that was not premeditated or for any personal gain, that he had suffered emotional turmoil in the weeks leading to the incident as a result of difficulties in his relationship with De Kock, and that he has shown remorse consistently since his arrest at a Police roadblock near Rundu on the day after the murder.Da Silva is not a danger to society, and he can be rehabilitated, Dos Santos said.He suggested that, if the more than three and a half years that Da Silva has spent in custody before the trial was finalised are taken into account, a sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment, of which six years are suspended, would be appropriate.According to Lisulo, though, Da Silva’s conduct showed that he has to be removed from society for a relatively long time.He suggested a 25-year jail term.