Five years for baby’s murder

THE High Court at Oshakati has sentenced a young woman to an effective five years in prison for killing and burying her newborn baby.

Vistolina Ekandjo Uupindi (29) from Onandjo village in the Omusati Region was found guilty of killing her baby boy shortly after his birth during the night of April 19 2003. On the murder charge, she received a seven-year prison sentence, of which two years were suspended for five years.Judge Louis Muller also found her guilty on a charge of concealment of birth.For this she was sentenced to six months in prison, which will be served concurrently with the five years for murder.Uupindi denied killing the baby, but admitted that she buried his dead body to conceal the birth.When sentencing her, Judge Muller said there was evidence that she had strangled the baby.In her plea explanation Uupindi said she fell pregnant as a result of an incestuous sexual relationship with a brother of hers.She told the court that she gave birth in a mahangu field.The baby was alive but the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.She said she waited for about an hour while the baby lay on the ground.”After a while, the baby became quiet as if dead and I believed therefore it was dead,” she told the court.She said she took a scarf and tied it tightly twice around the baby’s neck and body to cover it before burying it, but not to kill it, she claimed.Uupindi said that when she was doing so, the baby did not cry or move and seemed not to breathe.She added that after she had wrapped the scarf around the infant’s neck, she put the baby’s body in plastic bag, dug a hole with a stick and buried the child.On the murder charge, she received a seven-year prison sentence, of which two years were suspended for five years.Judge Louis Muller also found her guilty on a charge of concealment of birth.For this she was sentenced to six months in prison, which will be served concurrently with the five years for murder.Uupindi denied killing the baby, but admitted that she buried his dead body to conceal the birth.When sentencing her, Judge Muller said there was evidence that she had strangled the baby.In her plea explanation Uupindi said she fell pregnant as a result of an incestuous sexual relationship with a brother of hers.She told the court that she gave birth in a mahangu field.The baby was alive but the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.She said she waited for about an hour while the baby lay on the ground.”After a while, the baby became quiet as if dead and I believed therefore it was dead,” she told the court.She said she took a scarf and tied it tightly twice around the baby’s neck and body to cover it before burying it, but not to kill it, she claimed.Uupindi said that when she was doing so, the baby did not cry or move and seemed not to breathe.She added that after she had wrapped the scarf around the infant’s neck, she put the baby’s body in plastic bag, dug a hole with a stick and buried the child.