Prosecutor suggests 90-year prison term for triple killer

CONVICTED triple murderer Tuhafeni Berendisa Kutamudi should be jailed for the rest of his life, the State advocate who has been prosecuting him on the three counts of murder that he was convicted of last week suggested in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

Kutamudi (29) had been scheduled to return to the High Court next Friday for the start of the sentencing phase of his trial. Judge Mavis Gibson found him guilty on three counts of murder on Monday last week.However, he made an earlier return to the High Court yesterday, and is now scheduled to be sentenced today.Yesterday, Kutamudi’s defence counsel, Arthur Pickering, and State prosecutor Rolanda Gertze addressed Judge Gibson on the sentence that is to be imposed on Kutamudi.As could be expected, the two lawyers stressed opposite poles of the case, with Pickering emphasising the personal circumstances of his client, and Gertze focusing on the nature of the crimes that he was convicted of.Kutamudi was found guilty of murdering three people – his aunt, Sylvia Ndahafa Frans (65), her neighbour, Policapus Haitale (58), and her daughter, Eunice Kambwali (22) – at Onhuno, a village in the Ohangwena Region, on September 4 and 5 2002.He denied the charges.A confession that Kutamudi had made before a Magistrate shortly after his arrest on September 5 2002, as well as guilty pleas that he gave at his first court appearance four days later, formed part of the evidence against him, however.In the confession, Kutamudi explained that he and Haitale became involved in a physical fight after Kutamudi took back a traditional omukonda knife that Haitale had borrowed from him three months earlier.Kutamudi claimed that while Haitale was armed with a panga during the fight, he had armed himself with his omukonda and a stick, with which he hit Haitale.When Haitale fell to the ground, he stabbed him, Kutamudi explained in his confession.He added that he thereafter stabbed Frans, who had also beaten him with a stick.The next morning, he also stabbed Kambwali when she returned home after having spent the night somewhere else.He was still angry at that stage, he stated.Judge Gibson found that the evidence showed that Kutamudi intended to kill each of the three victims, and that there was no justification in law for him having attacked Haitale and Frans with the omukonda.A triple killer he may be, but Kutamudi also had about him an air of vulnerability and defencelessness yesterday, appearing helplessly resigned to his fate as his trial entered its final stage in the High Court.He did not testify in mitigation of sentence.Instead, Pickering addressed the court on his behalf.He told Judge Gibson that having received only two years of formal schooling, having grown up in the care of a grandmother, having hardly seen his parents as he grew up, and having not been formally employed, Kutamudi had led “a life of drifting”, without the sort of discipline enforced by formal schooling and employment.”In a sense, I would say that he was the victim of his own circumstances,” Pickering remarked, asking the court to strike a balance between the need to protect society and Kutamudi’s personal circumstances.Pickering did not suggest any specific sentence to the court.Gertze, however, did: a term of thirty years’ imprisonment on each of the murder counts, to be served consecutively because each of the murders was an independent act, she said.She further asked the Judge to order that Kutamudi should not be eligible to be released on parole or probation.In effect, then, he would spend the rest of his life in prison if the Judge follows Gertze’s suggestion.Namibian society is fed up with the increase of violent crimes, Gertze said: “Brutal murders, such as these of which the accused is convicted, call for our courts to impose sentences that will show our community that our courts are not condoning this type of behaviour.”Tuhafeni Berendisa Kutamudi was convicted of three horrendous murders,” she added.”One can but only feel utter revulsion for the way these crimes were committed.”Judge Mavis Gibson found him guilty on three counts of murder on Monday last week.However, he made an earlier return to the High Court yesterday, and is now scheduled to be sentenced today.Yesterday, Kutamudi’s defence counsel, Arthur Pickering, and State prosecutor Rolanda Gertze addressed Judge Gibson on the sentence that is to be imposed on Kutamudi.As could be expected, the two lawyers stressed opposite poles of the case, with Pickering emphasising the personal circumstances of his client, and Gertze focusing on the nature of the crimes that he was convicted of.Kutamudi was found guilty of murdering three people – his aunt, Sylvia Ndahafa Frans (65), her neighbour, Policapus Haitale (58), and her daughter, Eunice Kambwali (22) – at Onhuno, a village in the Ohangwena Region, on September 4 and 5 2002.He denied the charges.A confession that Kutamudi had made before a Magistrate shortly after his arrest on September 5 2002, as well as guilty pleas that he gave at his first court appearance four days later, formed part of the evidence against him, however.In the confession, Kutamudi explained that he and Haitale became involved in a physical fight after Kutamudi took back a traditional omukonda knife that Haitale had borrowed from him three months earlier.Kutamudi claimed that while Haitale was armed with a panga during the fight, he had armed himself with his omukonda and a stick, with which he hit Haitale.When Haitale fell to the ground, he stabbed him, Kutamudi explained in his confession.He added that he thereafter stabbed Frans, who had also beaten him with a stick.The next morning, he also stabbed Kambwali when she returned home after having spent the night somewhere else.He was still angry at that stage, he stated.Judge Gibson found that the evidence showed that Kutamudi intended to kill each of the three victims, and that there was no justification in law for him having attacked Haitale and Frans with the omukonda.A triple killer he may be, but Kutamudi also had about him an air of vulnerability and defencelessness yesterday, appearing helplessly resigned to his fate as his trial entered its final stage in the High Court.He did not testify in mitigation of sentence.Instead, Pickering addressed the court on his behalf.He told Judge Gibson that having received only two years of formal schooling, having grown up in the care of a grandmother, having hardly seen his parents as he grew up, and having not been formally employed, Kutamudi had led “a life of drifting”, without the sort of discipline enforced by formal schooling and employment.”In a sense, I would say that he was the victim of his own circumstances,” Pickering remarked, asking the court to strike a balance between the need to protect society and Kutamudi’s personal circumstances.Pickering did not suggest any specific sentence to the court.Gertze, however, did: a term of thirty years’ imprisonment on each of the murder counts, to be served consecutively because each of the murders was an independent act, she said.She further asked the Judge to order that Kutamudi should not be eligible to be released on parole or probation.In effect, then, he would spend the rest of his life in prison if the Judge follows Gertze’s suggestion.Namibian society is fed up with the increase of violent crimes, Gertze said: “Brutal murders, such as these of which the accused is convicted, call for our courts to impose sentences that will show our community that our courts are not condoning this type of behaviour.”Tuhafeni Berendisa Kutamudi was convicted of three horrendous murders,” she added.”One can but only feel utter revulsion for the way these crimes were committed.”