Rapist’s appeal attempt dead on arrival

AN appeal against a 37-year prison term that former security guard and self-confessed rapist Adolf Kahoro received in the Windhoek Regional Court two and a half years ago died in the starting blocks in the High Court in Windhoek on Monday.

The appeal that Kahoro, also known as Kaholo, wants to pursue against the sentences that he received from Magistrate Ben Myburgh on September 17 2004, was scheduled to be heard by Judges Mavis Gibson and Elton Hoff in the High Court on Monday. The appeal hearing never got out of the starting blocks, though.Kahoro was to be represented by lawyer Lourens Campher, but Campher told Judge Gibson that after he had studied the record of Kahoro’s trial, he had decided “that it would not be prudent to appear in this matter”.As a result of this, Campher asked the Judge to remove the case from the court roll.With State advocate Andrew Muvirimi having no objection against Campher’s request, Judge Gibson removed the appeal from the court roll.Kahoro would still be able to continue with his appeal at a later stage, either by representing himself in the appeal, or getting another lawyer to argue the appeal on his behalf and then getting the matter re-enrolled.Campher appeared on Kahoro’s behalf on instructions from the Directorate of Legal Aid.Kahoro was a 23-year-old security guard who was posted at the Pionierspark Cemetery in Windhoek when he attacked and raped a woman who was visiting the cemetery on January 21 2003.After he had raped the woman at gunpoint, a shot went off from the revolver with which Kahoro had been issued for his duties as a security guard.The shot struck the woman in her neck, but did not injure her severely.After she had been shot, Kahoro took the woman’s car keys from her and left the scene in her vehicle.He was arrested later that same day.He pleaded guilty to charges of rape and theft of a motor vehicle when his trial started in the Windhoek Regional Court on July 30 2004, but denied guilt on an additional charge of attempted murder.By the end of the trial he was however convicted on that count as well.Magistrate Myburgh sentenced Kahoro to 20 years’ imprisonment on the rape charge, a 10-year jail term on the attempted murder charge, of which five years were ordered to run concurrently with the sentence for the rape, and a further 12-year term of imprisonment on the motor vehicle theft charge.Altogether, Kahoro was sentenced to an effective 37 years’ imprisonment.In the notice of appeal setting out the grounds on which Kahoro wanted to attack the sentences, it is argued that the sentences were “totally inappropriate and shockingly severe”.The Magistrate, it is claimed in the appeal notice, had failed to take into account that Kahoro pleaded guilty and “showed remorse”.Kahoro however still pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder charge, whereafter the prosecution had to call the woman whom he attacked to the witness stand to testify on the incident and relive the terror that she had gone through.In the appeal notice it is further argued that the sentences are bound to take Kahoro “to the point of being broken down”, and that with these sentences the aims of retribution were overemphasised at the expense of the aims of deterrence and reformation.Kahoro has also had a previous run-in with the criminal justice system in Namibia, a record of his previous criminal convictions that forms part of the appeal record before the High Court shows.According to that record he was found guilty in the Uis Magistrate’s Court on a charge of malicious damage to property in April 2001, and notched up a second conviction for indecent assault in September 2001.On that second occasion he was sentenced to a one-year prison term.The appeal hearing never got out of the starting blocks, though.Kahoro was to be represented by lawyer Lourens Campher, but Campher told Judge Gibson that after he had studied the record of Kahoro’s trial, he had decided “that it would not be prudent to appear in this matter”.As a result of this, Campher asked the Judge to remove the case from the court roll.With State advocate Andrew Muvirimi having no objection against Campher’s request, Judge Gibson removed the appeal from the court roll.Kahoro would still be able to continue with his appeal at a later stage, either by representing himself in the appeal, or getting another lawyer to argue the appeal on his behalf and then getting the matter re-enrolled.Campher appeared on Kahoro’s behalf on instructions from the Directorate of Legal Aid.Kahoro was a 23-year-old security guard who was posted at the Pionierspark Cemetery in Windhoek when he attacked and raped a woman who was visiting the cemetery on January 21 2003.After he had raped the woman at gunpoint, a shot went off from the revolver with which Kahoro had been issued for his duties as a security guard.The shot struck the woman in her neck, but did not injure her severely.After she had been shot, Kahoro took the woman’s car keys from her and left the scene in her vehicle.He was arrested later that same day.He pleaded guilty to charges of rape and theft of a motor vehicle when his trial started in the Windhoek Regional Court on July 30 2004, but denied guilt on an additional charge of attempted murder.By the end of the trial he was however convicted on that count as well.Magistrate Myburgh sentenced Kahoro to 20 years’ imprisonment on the rape charge, a 10-year jail term on the attempted murder charge, of which five years were ordered to run concurrently with the sentence for the rape, and a further 12-year term of imprisonment on the motor vehicle theft charge.Altogether, Kahoro was sentenced to an effective 37 years’ imprisonment.In the notice of appeal setting out the grounds on which Kahoro wanted to attack the sentences, it is argued that the sentences were “totally inappropriate and shockingly severe”.The Magistrate, it is claimed in the appeal notice, had failed to take into account that Kahoro pleaded guilty and “showed remorse”.Kahoro however still pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder charge, whereafter the prosecution had to call the woman whom he attacked to the witness stand to testify on the incident and relive the terror that she had gone through.In the appeal notice it is further argued that the sentences are bound to take Kahoro “to the point of being broken down”, and that with these sentences the aims of retribution were overemphasised at the expense of the aims of deterrence and reformation.Kahoro has also had a previous run-in with the criminal justice system in Namibia, a record of his previous criminal convictions that forms part of the appeal record before the High Court shows.According to that record he was found guilty in the Uis Magistrate’s Court on a charge of malicious damage to property in April 2001, and notched up a second conviction for indecent assault in September 2001.On that second occasion he was sentenced to a one-year prison term.