The unpunished murder of prominent lawyer and Swapo member Anton Lubowski in the run-up to Namibia’s Independence election in 1989 is set to return to the agenda of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority this year.
A task team of the South African National Prosecuting Authority set up to oversee prosecutions and investigations dealt with by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will be considering the case concerning the murder of Lubowski this year, it was reported in The Cape Times and other media outlets in South Africa on Friday.
According to the reports, Chris MacAdam, South Africa’s Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, confirmed that Lubowski’s murder “clearly falls within the mandate of the task team” and that the matter would be on the agenda of the task team’s first meeting this year.
MacAdam could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Lubowski was assassinated in front of his house in Sanderburg Street in Windhoek on the evening of September 12 1989.
He was 37 years old at the time, and was the deputy head of Swapo’s Elections Directorate for the 1989 election.
Although an Irish national, Donald Acheson, was arrested in connection with the crime a day later, the case against him was withdrawn in early May 1990, when the High Court refused to grant the prosecution a further postponement in the case.
At that stage, the then Prosecutor General of Namibia, Hans Heyman, wanted more time to attempt to have additional suspects traced and brought from South Africa to be charged with Acheson.
A group of South African citizens who were linked to the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB), a State-sponsored organisation to which several politically connected killings have been attributed, were eventually implicated as having been involved in the planning and carrying out of the murder of Lubowski.
To date, none of the suspects have been prosecuted in connection with the crime.
Lubowski’s former wife, Gabi Lubowski, told The Namibian from Cape Town on Friday that while no visible steps had been taken over the years to hold anyone accountable for his Lubowski’s death, Lubowski’s family has continually approached various officials in South Africa’s prosecuting authorities in an attempt to keep the case alive and get the authorities moving on the matter.
Her family heard from MacAdam late last year that a task team established to look at unresolved matters that came out of the TRC would also be considering Lubowski’s murder when it meets this year, Mrs Lubowski said.
At this stage, though, indications are that while the case is to be back on the agenda of the South African prosecution authorities, no decisions have been taken yet to have the matter investigated further or to initiate a prosecution.
For Lubowski’s family, though, this development could offer a new glimmer of hope in their continuing – and so far disappointingly fruitless – quest to have his killer or killers face justice.
Some eight and a half years ago it was also reported in the South African media that top prosecutors and Police investigators in South Africa had been looking into the case again, and that the arrest of five people implicated in the crime was “believed to be imminent”. Nothing came of those expectations, though.
“We really want to have an answer now. We want to know who shot him, who gave the orders, and why this was done,” Mrs Lubowski said.
“There is no way that you can just gun down a person and life goes on as normal,” she said, adding that the fact that the implicated suspects had continued with their lives for more than 18 years without being charged, may show that they feel they are enjoying protection from someone.
“I want to sit across these guys and I want that they tell me exactly who it was, who gave the orders,” she said.
“What motive is so strong that you have to kill another person? Why? What motivates you to kill?” she said she wants to ask the people accused of involvement in Lubowski’s murder.
An inquest into Lubowski’s death was conducted in the High Court in 1994.
The inquest ended in June 1994 with Judge Harold Levy finding that there was sufficient evidence to show that Acheson had been the gunman who murdered Lubowski. Judge Levy also found that there was sufficient evidence to show that the CCB, which was linked to the SA military, had been responsible for the assassination.
Acheson’s accomplices, who were also linked to the CCB, were named by Judge Levy as CCB Managing Director Pieter Johan (Joe) Verster and CCB agents Daniel Ferdinand du Toit (also known as Staal Burger), Leon Andre (‘Chappie’) Maree, Ferdi Barnard, Carel Casteling (‘Calla’) Botha, Abram (‘Slang’) van Zyl, Wouter Basson, Johan Niemoller and Charles Neelse, aka Wildschudt.
None of the people who were implicated have applied to the TRC to be given amnesty for the crime.
Former PG Heyman, whose decision to withdraw the case against Acheson when a further postponement in the case against the Irishman was refused, was blasted by Judge Levy as “the height of incompetence”, continued to disagree with Judge Levy’s findings until he retired near the end of 2002.
According to Heyman, Acheson was not the actual killer, but was used as a decoy by the people involved in killing Lubowski.He felt that he could not continue to prosecute Acheson alone, and in the absence of the two people that he wanted to charge with Acheson – these were Staal Burger and Chappie Maree – he felt forced to withdraw the case against Acheson alone, Heyman has said.
