Koch’s widow scores victory

A BITTER dispute between the widow and the former lawyer of the late German extradition target Hans Jurgen Koch made a return to the High Court this week, with Koch’s widow scoring a courtroom win against her late husband’s former attorney.

A year after Koch’s death, his former lawyer, Evert Gous, is trying to sell the hunting and guest farm La Rochelle northeast of Tsumeb, which was Koch’s main Namibian asset and which has been valued at more than N$25,4 million after Koch died. Koch’s widow, Rachel Nathaniël-Koch, however appears to be trying her best to prevent such a sale, and this has landed her and Gous in acrimonious litigation in the High Court for the second time in less than a year.Nathaniël-Koch won a round in this ongoing battle this week, when Judge Collins Parker ruled that Gous and a fellow trustee of the trust that owns La Rochelle had not been properly authorised to institute legal action against Nathaniël-Koch to get the High Court to order her to allow prospective buyers of La Rochelle to visit the farm.Judge Parker also found that La Rochelle (Pty) Ltd – the company that owns La Rochelle, and of which the La Rochelle Ranch Trust in turn is the shareholder – was not properly before court as a party in the proceedings against Nathaniël-Koch either.The end result of Judge Parker’s findings was that the legal action that Gous, La Rochelle (Pty) Ltd, and German lawyer Christoff Tscharnkte, who is a co-trustee of Gous, launched against Nathaniël-Koch five weeks ago collapsed, with the Judge striking the case from the court roll.KOCH’S MARRIAGENathaniël-Koch, a former Magistrate who is currently a legal aid counsel in the Directorate of Legal Aid, married Koch on December 29 2006. The couple was married a month after Koch was released from Grootfontein Prison, where he had spent most of the four years during which he battled to evade being extradited to Germany to stand trial on charges in which he was accused of having committed fraud on a massive scale in his country of origin.Koch finally won his battle against the threat of being extradition in the Supreme Court on November 29 2006.After his release from prison, where he had met his future wife, he returned to La Rochelle, where he had established a hunting farm and lodge before his arrest in early October 2002.On October 3 last year, though, Koch died.In a joint will that the couple had made on November 23 2007, each of them designated the other as his or her sole heir when they died.In a previous will of Koch, dated November 4 2003, he had left all his assets to his son and daughter – a set of twins now 24 years old – from his first marriage.Farm La Rochelle, which had been Koch’s main asset in Namibia, is no longer part of the assets in Koch’s estate, though – but it is still at the centre of the dispute between Koch’s widow and his ex-lawyer.In a plan to protect his main asset in Namibia, Koch had the ownership of the farm transferred to a trust in November 2002, a month after his arrest.At that stage Gous was still his lawyer.Gous and a former employee of Koch, Daniel van Vuuren, became the first trustees of the La Rochelle Ranch Trust.In terms of the trust deed, Van Vuuren – and not Koch – was stated to be the donor who had the trust created. Koch’s two children, Van Vuuren and another employee of Koch, Phillip Oosthuizen, were designated as the capital beneficiaries of the trust, meaning that if the trust ever came to an end, its assets would be distributed amongst them, or if they have died, as in Van Vuuren’s case, to his children.BITTER SPLITWhen Van Vuuren was murdered by a cattle poacher between Outjo and Kamanjab on December 6 2006, Gous was left as the sole trustee.By then, however, Gous and his former client Koch had parted ways on a bad footing more than three years earlier.In a letter that Gous wrote to Koch in Grootfontein Prison on July 9 2003 to inform him that he would not longer be acting as Koch’s legal representative, Gous accused Koch of ‘reprehensible conduct’ and of acts that Gous charged were ‘illegal and corrupt’. Gous also stated to him that ‘the trust element of the attorney and client relationship clearly no longer exists’.Despite this rancorous end to their relationship as lawyer and client, Gous stayed on as a trustee of the La Rochelle Ranch Trust. Before Koch died, he tried to get Gous to resign as a trustee, but the lawyer refused.In documents filed with the High Court it is alleged that Koch instructed his then lawyer, Abe Naudé, in June last year to take legal action to have Gous removed as a trustee. Koch died before such legal action could be launched.After Koch’s death, Gous appointed himself in Koch’s place as the sole director of La Rochelle (Pty) Ltd.By early December last year, Nathaniël-Koch and the executor of Koch’s estate had launched a case in the High Court in an attempt to get Gous’s appointment as a director of the company set aside and to get four additional trustees appointed to the trust.The case was settled, though, with an agreement in which the deed of trust was accepted as valid and binding. It was further agreed that two additional trustees were to be appointed and that Gous would resign as a director of the company and Eric Knouwds would be appointed as a director in his place.It was also agreed that Nathaniël-Koch would be paid 20 per cent of the amount that would be distributed to the Namibian capital beneficiaries of the trust when the trust assets are distributed one day.In the meantime, Nathaniël-Koch had been on sick leave and special paid leave from her job with the Ministry of Justice from the start of December 2007 to the end of June this year. While on that leave, she was appointed by Knouwds as manager of the lodge at La Rochelle for a year with effect from February 9 this year, at a salary of N$192 000 a year.She had in the meantime also laid a complaint against Gous with the Law Society of Namibia, claiming that he was guilty of perjury and had backdated a document on the appointment of a co-trustee to make it appear as if that happened before she settled the case with him in December, while she alleged the appointment took place afterwards.On September 10, Knouwds informed Nathaniël-Koch that he was terminating her employment as lodge manager, supposedly because he had found out that she was also employed with the Ministry of Justice and had resumed her duties as a legal aid counsel at the start of July.By October 14, La Rochelle (Pty) Ltd, Gous and Tscharnkte launched the latest legal proceedings against Nathaniël-Koch.In an affidavit filed with the court, Gous claimed Nathaniël-Koch’s actions ‘are rooted in a vindictive attitude, borne from ulterior motives, which she has exhibited in particular towards myself, for a substantial period of time’.In the case that was settled last year, she had made ‘slanderous and vexatious allegations’ against him, Gous added.The fraud charge Nathaniël-Koch has laid against him is a ‘frivolous charge’ and also ‘disingenuous and fabricated’, Gous also stated.Gous has also claimed that Nathaniël-Koch is now unlawfully occupying the main house at La Rochelle. In due course, legal proceedings will be instituted to have her evicted from the house and the farm, he has threatened.Nathaniël-Koch has hit back, claiming that the shares in the company owning farm La Rochelle were never properly transferred to the trust, with the result that the farm in fact still belongs to Koch’s estate.She has informed the court in an affidavit that within 30 days after a ruling in the matter, she will start with legal action in the High Court to determine the ownership of the farm and to have an investigation done against Gous.Nathaniël-Koch is being represented by Sisa Namandje. In the case heard by Judge Parker, Gous, his co-trustee and the company were represented by Theo Barnard on instructions from Joos Agenbach of the law firm Koep & Partners.