Mafia suspect executed in capital

CHINESE citizen Yu Jin, who has repeatedly clashed with the law in Namibia over the past four-and-a-half years, was murdered gangland-style by an unknown assailant at his shop in Windhoek on Wednesday evening.

The 32-year-old, wheelchair-bound Yu was shot five times at about 21h20 on Wednesday at a shop that he was starting up in Katutura’s Ombili area, a Police spokesperson, Chief Inspector Angula Amulungu, confirmed yesterday. Amulungu said Yu was apparently renovating a place where he wanted to open a small shop when an unidentified man entered the premises and fired a succession of shots at Yu.”He just started shooting this wheelchair-bound man,” Amulungu said.Five shots were fired before the assailant fled from the scene.It is suspected that another person who was waiting outside the premises was in the killer’s company, Amulungu said.Nothing was stolen from the premises after Yu had been killed.”Apparently he just shot and went,” Amulungu said about the gunman.The killer has only been described as a black man, he said.Some of the shots were directed at Yu’s head, and others struck him in the chest.Yu had been a resident of Namibia for about the past 10 years.He lost the use of his legs in a road accident.Yu had a hostile relationship with influential sections of the Chinese community in Namibia, with some of the country’s Chinese residents having accused him of leading a mafia-type gang that was responsible for a host of criminal activities in Namibia, including armed robberies, extortion, drug and contraband trafficking and illegal possession of arms.Yu always denied these accusations.Over the last years of his life, he however repeatedly fell foul of the law and was arrested on several occasions on criminal charges.On most of these charges, Yu was never found guilty.The most recent of these charges included charges of drug dealing involving some 300 grams of heroin, fraud, and possessing illicit goods in the form of more than N$840 000 worth of counterfeit cigarettes.Yu and two fellow Chinese nationals were arrested on these charges in early August 2004.He and his co-accused remained in custody for more than two years, during which they made 17 appearances in court, only to have the case against them postponed each time, before they were finally granted bail of N$5 000 each on October 16 this year.Yu’s lawyer, André Louw, commented yesterday that his client had to sit in custody for more than two years with no charges having been proven against him, that he had to go through a formal bail application that ended with bail being refused to him, that he then had to appeal to the High Court to be granted bail, again without success, only to have the State concede in the end that he could be trusted to be released on bail after all.Once Yu had been released, he stayed in Namibia and did not try to flee from the country’s justice system, but remained committed to standing trial in the Windhoek Regional Court in June next year, Louw said.Louw has been representing Yu through a series of courtroom travails in Namibia.The first of these dated to May 2001, when Yu and three Namibian nationals were arrested on a charge of armed robbery after a Windhoek resident was robbed at gunpoint of goods valued at more than N$23 000 at his house in Windhoek West.One of the suspects eventually pleaded guilty on that charge and implicated Yu as having been the ringleader responsible for the robbery.With the case against Yu and one of his co-accused being repeatedly postponed, the exasperated complainant in that case eventually told the Windhoek Regional Court in early April 2004 that he was no longer interested in continuing with the charge.That led to Yu being acquitted.By then, he had also been involved in a case in which he and two fellow Chinese nationals were accused of having turned a baby shower at a Chinese restaurant in Windhoek into a gun fest in March 2002.One of Yu’s associates eventually admitted that he had sown chaos at the party by firing bursts of gunfire from an illegal R4 rifle, while Yu pleaded guilty to a charge of assault to do grievous bodily harm when he admitted that he had attacked one of the party guests by bashing him over the head with a stone.Yu received a fine of N$5 500 for that crime when that case was finalised in June 2002.By early August 2004, he was back in trouble again, though, when he was arrested on the drug dealing and other charges that led to him spending more than two years in Police custody.Amulungu said Yu was apparently renovating a place where he wanted to open a small shop when an unidentified man entered the premises and fired a succession of shots at Yu.”He just started shooting this wheelchair-bound man,” Amulungu said. Five shots were fired before the assailant fled from the scene.It is suspected that another person who was waiting outside the premises was in the killer’s company, Amulungu said.Nothing was stolen from the premises after Yu had been killed.”Apparently he just shot and went,” Amulungu said about the gunman.The killer has only been described as a black man, he said.Some of the shots were directed at Yu’s head, and others struck him in the chest.Yu had been a resident of Namibia for about the past 10 years.He lost the use of his legs in a road accident.Yu had a hostile relationship with influential sections of the Chinese community in Namibia, with some of the country’s Chinese residents having accused him of leading a mafia-type gang that was responsible for a host of criminal activities in Namibia, including armed robberies, extortion, drug and contraband trafficking and illegal possession of arms.Yu always denied these accusations.Over the last years of his life, he however repeatedly fell foul of the law and was arrested on several occasions on criminal charges.On most of these charges, Yu was never found guilty.The most recent of these charges included charges of drug dealing involving some 300 grams of heroin, fraud, and possessing illicit goods in the form of more than N$840 000 worth of counterfeit cigarettes.Yu and two fellow Chinese nationals were arrested on these charges in early August 2004.He and his co-accused remained in custody for more than two years, during which they made 17 appearances in court, only to have the case against them postponed each time, before they were finally granted bail of N$5 000 each on October 16 this year.Yu’s lawyer, André Louw, commented yesterday that his client had to sit in custody for more than two years with no charges having been proven against him, that he had to go through a formal bail application that ended with bail being refused to him, that he then had to appeal to the High Court to be granted bail, again without success, only to have the State concede in the end that he could be trusted to be released on bail after all.Once Yu had been released, he stayed in Namibia and did not try to flee from the country’s justice system, but remained committed to standing trial in the Windhoek Regional Court in June next year, Louw said.Louw has been representing Yu through a series of courtroom travails in Namibia.The first of these dated to May 2001, when Yu and three Namibian nationals were arrested on a charge of armed robbery after a Windhoek resident was robbed at gunpoint of goods valued at more than N$23 000 at his house in Windhoek West.One of the suspects eventually pleaded guilty on that charge and implicated Yu as having been the ringleader responsible for the robbery.With the case against Yu and one of his co-accused being repeatedly postponed, the exasperated complainant in that case eventually told the Windhoek Regional Court in early April 2004 that he was no longer interested in continuing with the charge.That led to Yu being acquitted.By then, he had also been involved in a case in which he and two fellow Chinese nationals were accused of having turned a baby shower at a Chinese restaurant in Windhoek into a gun fest in March 2002.One of Yu’s associates eventually admitted that he had sown chaos at the party by firing bursts of gunfire from an illegal R4 rifle, while Yu pleaded guilty to a charge of assault to do grievous bodily harm when he admitted that he had attacked one of the party guests by bashing him over the head with a stone.Yu received a fine of N$5 500 for that crime when that case was finalised in June 2002.By early August 2004, he was back in trouble again, though, when he was arrested on the drug dealing and other charges that led to him spending more than two years in Police custody.