No judge for NDF death-claim scam trial

THE long-delayed trial of 23 people accused of having defrauded the Namibia Defence Force and its staff life-insurance scheme of some N$6,5 million through falsely claiming insurance payouts in NDF members’ names failed to start as scheduled in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

Three weeks ago, Judge President Petrus Damaseb warned at the official opening of the High Court for the year that the court was “seriously hamstrung” by a lack of resources and, while facing a steadily increasing workload, in need of more permanent Judges if it was to be able to function effectively. Yesterday the Judge President delivered proof of the seriousness of that warning when he apologised to the 23 people charged in the NDF death-benefit scam case, their defence lawyers and the State Prosecutors who had assembled before him for what was supposed to be the start of the trial.He said the trial would not be able to begin, since there is no Judge available to preside over the matter at this stage.The NDF trial had been set to start yesterday, and to run to February 28.Its new projected starting date is now September 19, from when it is scheduled to run to October 13, the Judge President said.By that time, it will have been close to six years since the first people were arrested in connection with allegations that former Defence Ministry official Emmanuel Kapumba Mununga had for a matter of years been initiating and processing fake claims for the payment of life-insurance policies of NDF members who were falsely claimed to have died.In the process, Mununga and the people who went on to become his co-accused in the delay-plagued case allegedly managed to siphon some N$6,566 million out of the NDF Group Life Assurance Scheme.Mununga was the Ministry of Defence’s employee responsible for administering the scheme, it is alleged in the State’s indictment against him and his 22 co-accused in the High Court.Mununga and the first batch of people who would be accused with him in the case were arrested more than five years ago, in December 2000.Since then, the case has been bedevilled by a series of postponements and delays.By May 2002, the State was still not ready to ask them to plead to the charges against them, and was forced to withdraw the case.Mununga and his co-accused were thereafter summoned to return to court on the same charges, and the matter continued to drag on until it was transferred to the High Court, where they made several pre-trial appearances last year to sort out arrangements for the trial that finally was to start yesterday.But instead of that happening, Judge President Damaseb had to tell the 23 and their legal teams that he was extremely sorry about a state of affairs that was beyond the court’s control and that meant that the trial had to be postponed by another seven months.Come September 19, he said, he could assure them that the trial would definitely proceed.All 23 suspects remain free on a warning from the court.The bail money that they had posted after their initial arrests had to be returned to them after the charges were withdrawn in 2002.They are set to face 226 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, once the trial begins.Mununga is the only one of the accused to face all of those charges.He faces 54 of the counts alone, while he is charged together with one of his co-accused on all the other counts, which have been broken up into batches depending on who of the other suspects allegedly acted in concert with Mununga to commit the alleged crimes.According to the prosecution’s indictment, the State will set out to prove that in the period from 1996 to 2000 Mununga made false death-benefit claims to the NDF’s life-insurance scheme, and that he and his co-accused thereafter received the money that was paid out as a result of the submitted claims.As part of the alleged scam, Mununga is claimed to have agreed with his co-accused to use their bank accounts to deposit some of the money that was received.Yesterday the Judge President delivered proof of the seriousness of that warning when he apologised to the 23 people charged in the NDF death-benefit scam case, their defence lawyers and the State Prosecutors who had assembled before him for what was supposed to be the start of the trial.He said the trial would not be able to begin, since there is no Judge available to preside over the matter at this stage.The NDF trial had been set to start yesterday, and to run to February 28.Its new projected starting date is now September 19, from when it is scheduled to run to October 13, the Judge President said. By that time, it will have been close to six years since the first people were arrested in connection with allegations that former Defence Ministry official Emmanuel Kapumba Mununga had for a matter of years been initiating and processing fake claims for the payment of life-insurance policies of NDF members who were falsely claimed to have died.In the process, Mununga and the people who went on to become his co-accused in the delay-plagued case allegedly managed to siphon some N$6,566 million out of the NDF Group Life Assurance Scheme.Mununga was the Ministry of Defence’s employee responsible for administering the scheme, it is alleged in the State’s indictment against him and his 22 co-accused in the High Court.Mununga and the first batch of people who would be accused with him in the case were arrested more than five years ago, in December 2000.Since then, the case has been bedevilled by a series of postponements and delays.By May 2002, the State was still not ready to ask them to plead to the charges against them, and was forced to withdraw the case.Mununga and his co-accused were thereafter summoned to return to court on the same charges, and the matter continued to drag on until it was transferred to the High Court, where they made several pre-trial appearances last year to sort out arrangements for the trial that finally was to start yesterday.But instead of that happening, Judge President Damaseb had to tell the 23 and their legal teams that he was extremely sorry about a state of affairs that was beyond the court’s control and that meant that the trial had to be postponed by another seven months.Come September 19, he said, he could assure them that the trial would definitely proceed.All 23 suspects remain free on a warning from the court.The bail money that they had posted after their initial arrests had to be returned to them after the charges were withdrawn in 2002.They are set to face 226 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, once the trial begins.Mununga is the only one of the accused to face all of those charges.He faces 54 of the counts alone, while he is charged together with one of his co-accused on all the other counts, which have been broken up into batches depending on who of the other suspects allegedly acted in concert with Mununga to commit the alleged crimes.According to the prosecution’s indictment, the State will set out to prove that in the period from 1996 to 2000 Mununga made false death-benefit claims to the NDF’s life-insurance scheme, and that he and his co-accused thereafter received the money that was paid out as a result of the submitted claims.As part of the alleged scam, Mununga is claimed to have agreed with his co-accused to use their bank accounts to deposit some of the money that was received.