Esau wants state to provide lawyer

Former fisheries and marine resources minister Bernhard Esau says the state should ensure that he has legal representation in the Fishrot fishing quotas fraud and corruption case, in which he and a group of co-accused are due to be prosecuted.

Esau said this when he appeared without legal representation during a pretrial hearing in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

Esau (65), who has been held in custody since his arrest near the end of November 2019, told acting judge Kobus Miller his legal representatives from the law firm Metcalfe Beukes Attorneys have withdrawn, as he has not been able to pay them for their services.

“I cannot instruct anybody unless I have the means to pay,” Esau said. “I don’t have the means to pay.”

He also said he previously held a position as a public official when he was the minister of fisheries and marine resources, and was charged in that capacity for carrying out his duties with the allocation of fishing quotas, “so the state must take care of me”.

Asked whether he has applied for state-funded legal representation through the Directorate of Legal Aid in the Ministry of Justice, Esau said he wants to have a lawyer of his own choice and that the state, through the government attorney’s office, should see to it that he has legal representation.

Defence lawyer Trevor Brockerhoff, who is representing one of the other accused in the case, Ricardo Gustavo, also informed the judge that Gustavo has not been able to pay him for his services.

Esau and Gustavo have both tried to ask the High Court to give them access to some of their assets that have been kept out of their reach under a Prevention of Organised Crime Act restraint order since November 2020. However, they withdrew their applications to be allowed to raise money from their restrained assets before the applications were heard in court.

Gustavo was not present in court for the pretrial hearing yesterday. He is ill and is receiving hospital treatment, Brockerhoff indicated.

Only one of the defence lawyers involved in the case, Milton Engelbrecht, who is representing former National Fishing Corporation of Namibia (Fishcor) chief executive Mike Nghipunya, Otneel Shuudifonya and Phillipus Mwapopi, informed the judge that he and his clients are ready to proceed with their trial, which is scheduled to start on 2 October.

Shuudifonya and Mwapopi have both been granted legal aid, Engelbrecht informed the court.

Miller postponed the case to 20 September for a final pretrial hearing to take place. That was on the understanding that the trial would proceed in October, he said.

Esau, former attorney general and justice minister Sacky Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, who is a former board chairperson of the state-owned Fishcor, Nghipunya, Esau’s son-in-law Tamson Hatuikulipi, Gustavo, Shuudifonya, Mwapopi, Pius Mwatelulo and Nigel van Wyk, as well as two companies, 12 close corporations and four trusts represented by individual accused, are due to be prosecuted on 42 criminal charges, including counts of fraud, bribery, corruption, racketeering, money laundering and tax evasion.

The state is alleging that the accused acted together to devise a scheme in which they benefited financially from arrangements to give the Icelandic-owned fishing company group Samherji access to Namibian fishing quotas, through Fishcor and the company Namgomar Pesca Namibia, of which Gustavo was the sole director and an employee.

According to the state’s allegations against the accused, tens of millions of Namibia dollars in quota usage fees paid by the Samherji group of companies were channelled to the individual accused and corporate entities and trusts represented by them, whereas the fishing quotas to which Samherji had gained access had supposedly been allocated “for governmental objectives in the public interest”.

All of the 10 individual accused are being held in custody.