The state has a strong case against a gym instructor accused of murdering his former girlfriend in Windhoek in April last year, a magistrate said in a bail ruling in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
During a bail hearing that started last month, the state showed that murder accused Tjizake Murangi (23) would probably receive a substantial prison sentence if convicted, magistrate Monica Andjaba said in a ruling in which she dismissed an application by Murangi for bail to be granted to him.
Andjaba added that it would not be in the interest of the public or the administration of justice to release Murangi on bail.
Murangi has been held in custody for more than nine months. He was arrested on a charge of murder after his former girlfriend Frieda Amadhila (29), who was employed at a bank in Windhoek, died during the early morning hours of 8 April last year as a result of stab injuries.
During Murangi’s bail hearing, Andjaba was informed that Amadhila was stabbed more than eight times.
According to a report on a post-mortem examination carried out on her body, she had three fatal stab injuries to her chest.
The one stab injury was 17cm deep, another was 15cm deep, and a third was 14cm deep.
Murangi told the court he did not stab Amadhila and denied that he was responsible for her death, saying that she had been the aggressor during an altercation between them, Andjaba noted in her bail ruling.
He also said the wounds Amadhila sustained were from a scuffle between them over a knife with which she had stabbed him first.
Murangi testified that he was at Amadhila’s flat in Windhoek during the evening of 7 April last year.
He said when he stepped out of the flat to vape, Amadhila locked him out, and he saw that she was going through his cellphone.
Murangi continued that after she refused to give him his phone and open a burglar door that she had locked, he used an iron bar to open the burglar door.
He said he and Amadhila spoke and resolved the matter.
Later on, he was lying down and Amadhila came to sit on him, and shortly after that he realised he had been stabbed twice in the neck, Murangi said.
After that, there was a scuffle between him and Amadhila over the knife with which he had been stabbed, he said.
Andjaba recounted Murangi’s version of events: “He testified that at no point in time did he take a knife to stab the deceased [Amadhila], he was never in possession of a knife, he merely took the knife from her and threw it.”
After seeing that he and Amadhila were both injured and bleeding, he at first tried to get help from a neighbour, and then drove with Amadhila to Windhoek Central Hospital, where he was told to go to Katutura Intermediate Hospital instead, Murangi said.
He lost consciousness after arriving at Katutura Intermediate Hospital, and two days after waking up in an intensive care unit at the hospital he was told that Amadhila had died, Murangi also told the court.
According to a police officer who investigated the case, the state has evidence that Murangi murdered Amadhila “in an inhumane and barbaric manner”, Andjaba recounted.
The investigating officer also testified that two medical doctors have indicated that injuries to Murangi’s neck appeared to have been self-inflicted.
According to other evidence, Amadhila called the Windhoek City Police to report a housebreaking before the police received a report that she had died.
Andjaba concluded that the state “did indeed show that there is a strong prima facie case” against Murangi.
He has to make a next court appearance on 28 February.
Defence lawyer Milton Engelbrecht is representing Murangi.
Public prosecutor Eric Naikaku represented the state during the bail hearing.
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