Man admits fatal assault on pregnant girlfriend in High Court

A Gobabis resident has admitted in the High Court that he carried out a fatal assault on his pregnant girlfriend three years ago.

With his trial starting before judge Dinnah Usiku in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility on Tuesday, Jacobus Gawaseb (28) admitted in a plea statement that he assaulted his then girlfriend, Fransiska Naobes (24), in the Epako area of Gobabis during the night of 2 to 3 March 2023.

Gawaseb stated that he assaulted Naobes with a knobkierie and with his fists, and admitted that he knew the assault could cause her death.
He also admitted that his actions caused Naobes’ death.

However, with Gawaseb not admitting that he had a direct intention to kill Naobes, his plea on the murder charge he is facing was not accepted by the state.

Gawaseb and Naobes were involved in a romantic relationship and were the parents of a six-year-old daughter at the time of the incident that led to Naobes’ death.

Naobes was six to seven months pregnant with her and Gawaseb’s second child before her death.

The state is alleging that Gawaseb suspected Naobes of infidelity and that this led to the assault on her.

Gawaseb is alleged to have assaulted Naobes by punching her, hitting her with a stone and a knobkierie and by jumping on her body.

In his plea statement, however, Gawaseb only admitted that he punched Naobes and hit her with a knobkierie.

Gawaseb related that a woman who was a neighbour of him and Naobes privately informed him that Naobes was unfaithful to him and that the baby she was pregnant with was not his child.

“I decided to confront the deceased about the allegations and asked her if they were true, but she chose to ignore me,” he said in his plea statement.

He continued: “Overwhelmed by emotions and the fact that the deceased was refusing to speak to me, I decided that I was going to discipline her and took my knobkierie and started beating the deceased with it.”

He said Naobes at one point ran out of their house and fled to the house of a neighbour, but he followed, broke open the door of the neighbour’s house and dragged Naobes out of the house.

Gawaseb said when he arrived at the neighbour’s house, “I couldn’t control my anger and intentionally beat the deceased with my knobkierie again and my fists”.

He added: “I then dragged the deceased back to our home and continued beating her with my fists and she became unresponsive or unconscious.”
Naobes survived the assault for nearly seven weeks. She died in a hospital in Windhoek, where she was being treated for her injuries, on 19 April 2023.

One of the state’s witnesses, Sophia Witbeen, testified on Tuesday and yesterday that she saw Gawaseb hitting Naobes with a metal rod after she had been awakened by a scream.

Witbeen said she told Gawaseb he was killing a person and he would be answerable for that, and Gawaseb answered her by saying he was going to do it and was going to finish it.

She also told the court she saw Gawaseb stomping on Naobes, who was lying on the ground, when he continued to assault her after she had admonished him.

Gawaseb is denying that he stepped or jumped on Naobes, defence lawyer Melissa Windisch told the witness, who stuck to her version that she had seen him stomping on Naobes.

The trial is continuing.

State advocate Sakaria Mupuma is representing the prosecution.

Gawaseb is being held in custody.

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