Shaduka denies murder charge

‘I PLEAD not guilty,’ was the response of businessman Lazarus Shaduka in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday when he was asked to plead to a charge in which he is accused of murdering his wife almost two years ago.

Shaduka (36) is charged with counts of murder and defeating or obstructing the course of justice, or attempting to do so, in connection with the gunshot death of his wife, Selma Shaimemanya (33), in Windhoek on July 13 2008.Shaimemanya, who was employed as the secretary of Defence Minister Charles Namoloh at the time of her death, died after being shot with a 9 mm pistol. The prosecution is alleging that the fatal shot struck her in her back, between her spinal column and right shoulder, and that she died at the scene of the shooting, at her and Shaduka’s home in Klein Windhoek’s B.C. Barnes Street.It is also alleged that Shaduka tried to conceal the circumstances of her death by claiming that she had committed suicide or had been shot by someone else, and by trying to dispose of bullets in a toilet at the clinic where he took his wife to after the shooting.’A shooting accident occurred, involving the accused and the deceased,’ Shaduka’s defence counsel, Albert Strydom, told Judge Kato van Niekerk after Shaduka had given his plea on the two charges.Strydom said the ‘shooting accident’ resulted in Shaimemanya’s death. A pistol belonging to Shaduka was the gun that went off accidentally, causing her death, he said.The first witness to be called by State advocate Belinda Wantenaar to testify in the trial, Alfons Tjitamunisa, told the court that he was at Paramount Healthcare Centre in Windhoek’s Eros area between 19h00 and 20h00 on July 13 2008 when Shaduka arrived there and rushed inside, shouting for help.’Please help me, please help me, my wife shot herself,’ Shaduka was shouting, Tjitamunisa said. He added that when he looked in the back of Shaduka’s car, he saw a woman lying on the back seat. She was still moving and her body was shaking, he said.According to a nurse at the healthcare centre, Maria Appelgreyn, Shaduka appeared to be hysterical and in shock when he rushed into the centre.As she recalled it, he was shouting: ‘Help, help, my wife was shot.’When the doctor on duty went to look at the person in Shaduka’s car, he reported that she was already dead, Appelgreyn said.Windhoek City Police Constable Cemelia Boois testified she was summoned to the healthcare centre at about 19h50 in connection with an alleged suicide. She said she found Shaduka in an emotional state, crying and calling out repeatedly: ‘My wife, my wife, who will take care of my child?’When she asked Shaduka what had happened, he replied that when he arrived home he found the kitchen door open and found his wife lying on the couch, bleeding, Boois told the court.According to Shaduka, he was in an emotional state at the time, and he cannot recall telling Boois something like that, Strydom told Boois. That was what he said, though, she replied.The trial is continuing today.Shaduka has been in custody since being arrested on the evening of his wife’s death.