Policeman goes on trial over deadly shooting

A POLICE officer accused of murdering a man and attempting to kill two other people in a shooting sparked by a cellphone pleaded not guilty to all charges when his trial started in the Windhoek Regional Court on Friday.

It was around 02h00 on October 1 2006 that the deadly shooting incident that landed Police officer Gottlieb Shituleni Nangolo in the dock took place in Omongo Street in Windhoek’s Wanaheda area.When the shooting was over, Theofelus Ingayamwena Ndungandulu (31) lay dead in the street. He died from a gunshot wound to his chest.Another person, Kleophas Nuunyango, was shot in the stomach. He survived.A third man, Hafeni Kaulumbwa, was not injured, although he was allegedly also shot at.On Friday, Nangolo (32) pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder and two counts of attempted murder.Nangolo’s defence counsel, Jan Wessels, told Magistrate Sarel Jacobs that Nangolo is not denying that Ndungandulu died from a gunshot wound to the chest and that the shot that struck him was fired from a firearm that was in Nangolo’s possession.Nangolo is however claiming that the shot that killed Ndungandulu was fired accidentally and in circumstances where Ndungandulu had launched an unlawful attack on him, Wessels said.Nangolo is also not denying that he fired various other shots when he was also under unlawful attack from other people, Wessels said.Nangolo is denying that he had an intention to kill anyone, Wessels told the Magistrate. He said Nuunyango is in fact a friend of Nangolo, who does not know how Nuunyango was also struck by a bullet.According to an autopsy report that has become part of the evidence in the trial, the fatal shot struck Ndungandulu on the right side of his chest and exited his body on the left side of his chest. The bullet struck both his lungs and his heart.Warrant Officer Zachariah Amakali, who investigated the case, testified on Friday that he found three spent cartridge cases at the scene of the shooting, where Ndungandulu lay dead in the street, when he visited the scene at about 02h40 on October 1 2006.Amakali said a person who said he was the owner of a car that was at the scene told him that Ndungandulu had been driving the car.When he found Nangolo at Wanaheda Police Station, Nangolo told him he had been at a shebeen in the Goreangab Dam area when someone asked if he could use Nangolo’s cellphone. The person took the phone, went to the toilet and then did not return, but got into the vehicle that was later found at the scene of the shooting and drove off, Amakali said he was told by Nangolo.He said according to Nangolo he and a friend followed the person who had his phone and managed to stop his car in Omongo Street. After Nangolo had managed to stop the other vehicle, the people in that car started fighting with him, and he then fired some shots, allegedly in self-defence, Amakali said Nangolo told him.Wessels told Amakali that his instructions from Nangolo are that his cellphone was not borrowed by someone, but was simply taken, with the person then refusing to give it back to him.Public Prosecutor Ingrid Husselmann presented only the testimony of Amakali and a former Police officer who took photographs at the scene of the shooting to the court before the trial was postponed again. It is scheduled to continue on May 5 and 6 next year.Nangolo remains free on bail of N$1 500 that was granted to him on October 11 2006.