Namibia’s ‘most wanted’ guilty on 27 charges

BAKONDJA Katjiuongua – once the most wanted man in Namibia – has been found guilty on 27 charges, including 25 counts of fraud, in the first of his two continuing Windhoek Regional Court trials.

Magistrate Dinnah Usiku convicted Katjiuongua on 25 counts of fraud, one charge of uttering and one count of theft on Friday. She found him not guilty on another 17 charges, including 13 counts of fraud, two counts of forgery, a charge of uttering a forged document, and a count of theft.Katjiuongua (26) pleaded not guilty to all 44 charges that he faced when his trial started in late September 2004.He is set to return to the Windhoek Regional Court on Friday this week for the start of the sentencing phase of the trial.The charges on which the court delivered its verdict last week relate to a series of incidents in which Katjiuongua was alleged to have used stolen cheques to pay for goods that he bought in Windhoek between April and early October 2000.Most of those cheques belonged to his father, politician and former Member of Parliament Moses Katjiuongua, or to two of the political parties that Katjiuongua Snr had once led, being the Namibia Patriotic Front and the Democratic Coalition of Namibia.Magistrate Usiku also found Katjiuongua Jnr guilty on three charges related to other stolen cheques that had been cashed for a total of N$20 000 at a foreign-exchange bureau at the Hosea Kutako International Airport on October 1 2000.Although there was no evidence to show that Katjiuongua had been responsible for stealing a briefcase containing those cheques, the court heard testimony that he had admitted in a written statement made before a Police officer that he was responsible for cashing the cheques.In respect of the other fraud charges that he was convicted on, it was alleged – and the court accepted evidence to that effect – that Katjiuongua had used cheques belonging to his father or the two political parties to go on various shopping excursions.During these, it was claimed, he bought things like a tent, a camping freezer, cell phones, groceries, clothes, music equipment and bar stools, and also paid a deposit on a new vehicle, paid car rental fees, replaced a car’s windscreen, and on October 9 2000 bought cake and other baked goods for a total of N$149 at ‘Ouma se Spens’, a shop selling home-baked goods.The court also found him guilty on a charge of theft, in which it was alleged that he had stolen the chequebooks that were later to be used during the illegal shopping spree, from his father at some stage between June and October 2000.Among the charges on which Magistrate Usiku found Katjiuongua not guilty were seven counts of fraud in which it was alleged that he had used stolen cheques that belonged to his father to buy fuel at a Pionierspark service station in July 2000.Once his trial before Magistrate Usiku has been finalised, Katjiuongua will still have another pending trial in the Windhoek Regional Court to deal with.In that trial, he is facing 17 charges – including three counts of escape from lawful custody, three charges of kidnapping, and five counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances – which all sprouted from his alleged repeat escapes from Police custody after his initial arrest on the cheque-fraud charges.It was during the time that he was on the run from the Police after a third alleged escape, in March 2001, that Katjiuongua was labelled Namibia’s most wanted man.At the time, he managed to evade arrest for about a month.She found him not guilty on another 17 charges, including 13 counts of fraud, two counts of forgery, a charge of uttering a forged document, and a count of theft.Katjiuongua (26) pleaded not guilty to all 44 charges that he faced when his trial started in late September 2004.He is set to return to the Windhoek Regional Court on Friday this week for the start of the sentencing phase of the trial.The charges on which the court delivered its verdict last week relate to a series of incidents in which Katjiuongua was alleged to have used stolen cheques to pay for goods that he bought in Windhoek between April and early October 2000.Most of those cheques belonged to his father, politician and former Member of Parliament Moses Katjiuongua, or to two of the political parties that Katjiuongua Snr had once led, being the Namibia Patriotic Front and the Democratic Coalition of Namibia.Magistrate Usiku also found Katjiuongua Jnr guilty on three charges related to other stolen cheques that had been cashed for a total of N$20 000 at a foreign-exchange bureau at the Hosea Kutako International Airport on October 1 2000.Although there was no evidence to show that Katjiuongua had been responsible for stealing a briefcase containing those cheques, the court heard testimony that he had admitted in a written statement made before a Police officer that he was responsible for cashing the cheques.In respect of the other fraud charges that he was convicted on, it was alleged – and the court accepted evidence to that effect – that Katjiuongua had used cheques belonging to his father or the two political parties to go on various shopping excursions.During these, it was claimed, he bought things like a tent, a camping freezer, cell phones, groceries, clothes, music equipment and bar stools, and also paid a deposit on a new vehicle, paid car rental fees, replaced a car’s windscreen, and on October 9 2000 bought cake and other baked goods for a total of N$149 at ‘Ouma se Spens’, a shop selling home-baked goods.The court also found him guilty on a charge of theft, in which it was alleged that he had stolen the chequebooks that were later to be used during the illegal shopping spree, from his father at some stage between June and October 2000.Among the charges on which Magistrate Usiku found Katjiuongua not guilty were seven counts of fraud in which it was alleged that he had used stolen cheques that belonged to his father to buy fuel at a Pionierspark service station in July 2000.Once his trial before Magistrate Usiku has been finalised, Katjiuongua will still have another pending trial in the Windhoek Regional Court to deal with.In that trial, he is facing 17 charges – including three counts of escape from lawful custody, three charges of kidnapping, and five counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances – which all sprouted from his alleged repeat escapes from Police custody after his initial arrest on the cheque-fraud charges.It was during the time that he was on the run from the Police after a third alleged escape, in March 2001, that Katjiuongua was labelled Namibia’s most wanted man.At the time, he managed to evade arrest for about a month.