Two men convicted of murdering a couple at their farm in the Gobabis area in January 2018 were sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment each on two counts of murder on Tuesday.
Judge Naomi Shivute also sentenced farmworkers Bernadus Afrikaner (38) and Salathuel Unaeb (49) in the Windhoek High Court to three years’ imprisonment on a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances and a jail term of three years on a count of arson.
Afrikaner was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment on a charge of unlawful supply of a firearm as well, while Unaeb was sentenced to a jail term of three months on a count of assault by threat.
Shivute convicted the two men on the charges in May this year.
Shivute found that Afrikaner and Unaeb murdered the couple Armin Riedel (68) and Brunhild Riedel (66) at their farm in the Gobabis district on 20 January 2018.
The couple’s bodies were burnt when their house was torched after they had been killed.
During the trial of Afrikaner and Unaeb, witnesses told the court that Afrikaner sold a pistol registered in Brunhild’s name to someone at Gobabis after the couple had been killed.
One of the prosecution’s witnesses also testified that Afrikaner told her he had forced Brunhild into the couple’s house, and that he shot her and also her husband.
Unaeb told another witness that he did not kill, but was involved in the crimes committed at the Riedels’ farm.
Shivute found that Afrikaner and Unaeb made common cause with each other when they forced the couple into their house, and their conduct when the house was burning was an indication that they knew what was going on.
The only reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence is that they killed and robbed the couple and set fire to their house, Shivute concluded when she delievered her judgement in May.
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