A PRIMARY schoolteacher charged with murdering his wife in Windhoek in April will not be granted bail, a magistrate ruled in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura on Friday.
Releasing Patrick Stanley Geingob (38) on bail would not be in the interest of justice, as Geingob was likely to interfere with the investigation of his case and with witnesses in the matter, magistrate Uaatjo Uanivi concluded in a ruling delivered at the end of a hearing on an application by Geingob to be granted bail.
Geingob has been in custody since mid-April, when he was arrested in connection with the fatal stabbing of his wife, Merentha Geingos.
Geingos (38), who was also a teacher, was stabbed some 12 times with a knife at her and Geingob’s home in Katutura on 12 April. She died in a Windhoek hospital the next day.
During his bail hearing, Geingob said he had been booked off from work on medical grounds from early February to 16 April. He said he had been out with a friend on 12 April, and when he returned home, he found that Geingos had locked him out of the house.
He recounted that there was a quarrel between him and Geingos, and added that he could not remember what happened after that. The next thing he could remember, Geingob claimed, was when a tenant came and took him out of the house.
He also told the court that he went to the Wanaheda Police Station the next day to hand himself over to the police, because he realised he had done something wrong.
Under cross-examination from public prosecutor Arrie Husselmann, Geingob conceded that the state had a strong case against him.
In a post-mortem report that was handed in as part of the evidence in the bail hearing, it is recorded that Geingos was stabbed 12 times. Two of the injuries that she sustained – the one a stab wound to her abdomen, and the other a deep stab wound to her right thigh – were potentially fatal, it is stated in the report.
Under cross-questioning, Geingob also confirmed that he had previously faced a rape charge, emanating from an allegation that he had raped a schoolgirl.
The case in which Geingob was charged with rape ended up being struck form the court roll because the police investigations were not concluded, Husselmann informed the court.
Having refused Geingob’s application for bail, the magistrate postponed his case to 23 October, with further investigations to be carried out in the meantime.
