Nampost fraudster wins appeal against sentence

A 21-YEAR prison term with which a former Nampost employee was whacked after he admitted that he committed fraud by stealing more than N$50 000 out of the post office savings accounts of Nampost clients was slashed by two thirds on appeal in the High Court in Windhoek on Friday.

Ondangwa Magistrate Patricia Nakanyala sentenced former Nampost employee Martin Benhardt to an effective jail term of 21 years on September 20 2005, after Benhardt had pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud.
On each of these charges, the Magistrate sentenced Benhardt to a three-year prison term.
The total amount involved in the seven charges to which Benhardt admitted guilt was N$50 362.
All the charges dated from the period of March to September 2004.With his pleas of guilty, Benhardt admitted that he committed fraud on seven occasions by pretending that he was entitled to withdraw money from a number of Nampost savings accounts.
The largest amount of money that he admitted withdrawing out of one of these accounts was N$20 000. The smallest amount involved in the charges was N$422, which related to a false deposit entry that Benhardt was accused of having made in the account book of one of Nampost’s account holders.
After hearing arguments on Benhardt’s appeal against the Magistrate’s sentences from defence lawyer Rocco Kauta and State advocate Ed Marondedze on Friday, Judge Kato van Niekerk and Acting Judge Johan Swanepoel handed down a ruling in which they set aside all the sentences imposed by the Magistrate.
They replaced these with prison terms ranging between three months – imposed on the charge involving the amount of N$422 – and two and a half years, which was imposed on the charge involving an amount of N$20 000. With the sentences backdated to September 20 2005 and also not ordered to be served concurrently, Benhardt was in effect sent to jail for six years and three months.
The two Judges indicated that reasons for their ruling would be given at a later stage.