Otjomuise rape case thrown out

A GERMAN national who spent more than a year and a half in custody without bail while charges of rape and attempted murder were pending against him was acquitted on all counts in the Windhoek Regional Court last week.

In a ruling given on Thursday, Magistrate Dinnah Usiku ruled in favour of an application from former rape suspect Heinz Knierim (45) to be discharged at the close of the prosecution’s case in his trial. The magistrate found that the evidence that the prosecution presented to the court during Knierim’s trial was not sufficient to prove any of the charges against him or to require him to still present the case in his defence to the court.The Magistrate also found that the testimony of the complainant in the matter was contradictory, and that she had not been a credible witness.Knierim’s trial started before Magistrate Usiku on February 16 last year, when he pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and attempted murder.He was accused of having attacked a 29-year-old woman in Otjomuise in Windhoek on the evening of July 31 2007. It was claimed that he tried to strangle her and that he raped her, before he left the scene of the alleged attack.Knierim was arrested on August 1 2007, after he had gone to the Police to report an attack that he claimed had been launched on him and the complainant the previous evening while he was giving her transport to her home on his motorcycle.Knierim claimed that he met the complainant in a bar in Otjomuise on the evening of the incident and that he offered her a lift home on his bike when he left the bar.When he dropped her off, Knierim claimed in a plea explanation that was given to the court, he saw two men starting to assault her. When he tried to intervene in the assault, he was also attacked by the men, he claimed. He then left the scene, leaving the woman behind with the alleged attackers, Knierim claimed.During the trial the complainant told the court that she had given birth about two weeks before the incident. On the day of the incident, she had fetched her baby from the hospital where the child had been since its birth, and then went to the shebeen where she met Knierim, the court was told. When the woman’s boyfriend later fetched the baby from the shebeen to take the child home, the complainant remained behind at the bar.Knierim, who has been living in Namibia since December 2003, has been married to a Namibian woman since mid-2004. Four months after his arrest, he applied in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court to be released on bail. His bail application failed, and he remained in custody for almost a year and three months more. After the complainant had testified in the trial, Magistrate Usiku granted Knierim bail in an amount of N$300 on March 13 last year. He has been free on bail since then.During the trial, Knierim was represented by Legal Aid Directorate counsel Tulonga Nakamhela. Public Prosecutor O.J. Lino represented the State.