Mass killer gets six life prison terms

Mass killer Sylvester Beukes, who murdered eight people at a farm in the Hardap region in March 2005, has been sentenced to six terms of life imprisonment and a 30-year jail term in an appeal judgement delivered in the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The court set aside the effective prison term of 105 years that Beukes received in November 2011, at the end of his trial in the Windhoek High Court, and replaced it with an effective sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment and six terms of life imprisonment.

In the court’s judgement, acting judge of appeal Theo Frank said the crimes committed by Beukes, who massacred eight people – including a pregnant woman and two children – at a farm in the Kalkrand area on 5 March 2005 “could only be described as monstrous and extreme”.

Had it not been for previous Supreme Court judgements on the constitutionality of a sentence of imprisonment for life and of extra-long jail terms that exceed the expected life span of an offender, it would have been correct for the court to ensure Beukes’ permanent removal from society, Frank added.

He also said Beukes deserves an effective sentence that far exceeds a prison term that would leave him eligible to be considered for release on parole within the same time span as other prisoners serving a term of life imprisonment.

The appeal court changed Beukes’ sentences on the eight murder charges to a prison term of 30 years on the first murder count, a jail term of 35 years on the second charge of murder, of which 15 years are to be served concurrently with the sentence on the first murder charge, and a term of life imprisonment on each of six further counts of murder.

The court also ordered that the sentences of life imprisonment should be served concurrently with the sentence on the second count of murder, and directed that the sentences are backdated to the date of Beukes’ sentencing in November 2011.

Beukes’ sentence was changed in a judgement in which Frank and acting judges of appeal Hosea Angula and Rita Makarau also considered appeals against the sentences of 13 other prisoners serving lengthy jail terms, ranging from 35 years to 85 years.

The prisoners’ appeals were heard in light of a Supreme Court judgement in which the court found in February 2018 that sentences of imprisonment for such a long period that it would leave the sentenced offender without a realistic hope of ever being released from prison amount to cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment, and infringe the prisoner’s constitutional right to human dignity.

Frank noted in the judgement delivered on Thursday that life imprisonment is the longest sentence that can be imposed on anyone in Namibia.

In terms of the Correctional Service Act of 2012, someone sentenced to life imprisonment becomes eligible to be considered for release on parole after serving a period of at least 25 years in prison.

Frank also noted that in terms of the same act someone sentenced to a jail term of 20 years or more or any term for a specified list of serious crimes becomes eligible for release on parole or probation after serving two-thirds of their sentence.

This means that someone sentenced to more than 37 and a half years’ imprisonment would be worse off than an offender sentenced to life imprisonment, as they would have to serve a period of more than 25 years in prison before they might be released on parole or probation.

A direct term of imprisonment for a period longer than 37 and a half years in respect of a single offence should be avoided, and where such sentences are imposed, the reason for them should be very clear and should justify why a sentence of life imprisonment was not chosen, Frank said.

MULTIPLE MURDERS

The appeals with which the court dealt include one by a triple killer, Tuhafeni Berendisa Kutamudi, who murdered three people in northern Namibia in September 2002 and was sentenced to an effective prison term of 85 years in July 2005.

The Supreme Court changed his sentences to a prison term of 30 years on one murder charge, a jail term of 30 years on a second count of murder, which is to be served concurrently with 25 years of the first sentence, and life imprisonment on the third murder charge.

The court ordered that the sentence of life imprisonment is to be served concurrently with the sentence on the second murder charge, resulting in an effective sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment, followed by a term of life imprisonment.

An effective prison term of 70 years imposed on a double killer, Fillemon Nkandi, in the Oshakati High Court in June 2020, was also changed by the Supreme Court and replaced with two terms of life imprisonment.

Nkandi used a shotgun to murder two people – a 61-year-old woman and her 29-year-old son – at a village in the Oshigambo area of the Oshikoto region in March 2012.

In two other appeals decided by the court, it set aside the effective prison terms of 60 years received by two double killers, Jakobus Jossop and Aloyis Ditshabue, at the end of their trials in the Windhoek High Court in April 2015 and April 2014, respectively.

Jossop murdered two men in stabbing incidents near Karasburg in January 2009.

The Supreme Court replaced his sentences with a 21-year prison term on one count of murder and a term of life imprisonment on the other charge, and ordered that the life jail term will start after 14 years of the sentence on the first charge have been served.

Ditshabue murdered his wife by strangling her in the Aminuis area in February 2008 and committed a second murder by stabbing his girlfriend to death at Gobabis in July 2011.

The Supreme Court replaced his previous sentences with a jail term of 21 years on the first murder count and a term of life imprisonment on the second charge, and ordered that the life term will start after he has served 10 years of the sentence on the first charge.

All of the sentences were backdated to the date of the inmates’ initial sentencing.
Angula and Makarau agreed with Frank’s judgement.