Death ends Kakololo’s retrial before it can begin

ARMED robbery suspect Tuhafeni Kakololo has a watertight excuse for missing the scheduled start of his trial in the Windhoek Regional Court yesterday: he is dead.

Kakololo was supposed to go on trial for a second time on the same charges of attempted murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances. A death certificate, instead of Kakololo himself, turned up at the Windhoek Regional Court, though.When the dock stayed empty after Kakololo’s case was called in court, Public Prosecutor Simba Nduna informed Magistrate Sarel Jacobs that Kakokolo had died.Kakololo was one of the two alleged robbers shot dead by Police officers in a shootout after a heist at a gambling house in the Ausspannplatz area of Windhoek on April 2.On a death certificate that was handed to Magistrate Jacobs, Kakololo’s cause of death is stated as ‘being investigated’.As a result of this turn of events, Nduna and defence lawyer Tanswell Davies, who was set to represent Kakololo, asked the Magistrate to have charges against Kakololo withdrawn.Kakololo, who died at the age of 39, was supposed to go on trial before Magistrate Jacobs on charges that date back almost 10 years.At the end of a first trial in the Windhoek Regional Court, he was convicted on those charges and sentenced to a jail term of 20 years on March 27 2001.Kakololo was one of four men prosecuted in connection with an armed robbery in which the owner of Tré Supermarket in Windhoek, Sidinio Tré, was shot in the shoulder and N$160 000 was stolen from him on April 24 1999. Kakololo was the only one of the four accused to be found guilty.The evidence that implicated Kakololo at his first trial included evidence that Mr Tré identified him at an identification parade as the person who had robbed and shot him, as well as evidence that a palm print of Kakololo was found on the boot of Tré’s car, where the robbers had held him at gunpoint during the robbery.During his trial Kakololo wanted to have a fingerprint expert who found the palm print at the scene and later identified it as Kakololo’s to be called back to the witness stand for further cross-examination by himself – after the witness had completed his testimony.The Magistrate refused to recall the witness.When Kakololo appealed to the High Court against his conviction and sentence, the two Judges who heard the appeal decided that the Magistrate’s refusal to recall the witness had been a ‘material irregularity’. As a result, they set aside the conviction and sentence on May 26 2005.The Judges, noting that Kakololo had been implicated by the pointing out at the identification parade and by the claim that his palm print was found on Tré’s car, ordered that Kakololo had to be tried again on the same charges, but before a different Magistrate.Since then, Kakololo’s retrial has been pending for almost four years without getting started.Kakololo was granted bail of N$2 500 in early August 2005. By March the next year, his brother, who had paid the bail, asked that the money be returned to him and his brother’s bail be withdrawn, since Kakololo had in the meantime been arrested again in another case.By June 2007, Kakololo was again granted bail, that time in an amount of N$1 500. The bail remained unpaid and Kakololo remained in custody until the bail amount was reduced to N$800 in early September 2007. Kakololo finally paid this amount on October 22 2007. So began the last period of freedom in a life that was to end on a bloody note almost two weeks ago.The withdrawal of the charges yesterday is still not the late Kakololo’s last encounter with the criminal justice system in Namibia. Another robbery case, in which he and three co-accused were charged after they allegedly tried to stage a robbery at a service station in Klein Windhoek on January 30 2006, is still pending in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court, where it is scheduled to make a return to court on June 3.