A WINDHOEK resident accused of raping and robbing several women during burglaries in the city’s Okuryangava area in 2009 and 2010 denied all allegations against himself when he started to testify in his own defence in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
Pinias Kashawa told Judge Alfred Siboleka he was innocently walking along a footpath in Okuryangava on his way to his home in the Havana area when he was shot in the leg, found himself surrounded by a crowd of people, and later ended up in a police holding cell after he had spent months in hospital.
Kashawa (42) was shot shortly after a female police officer living in the area had fought off an intruder who had attacked her in her house for the second time in five months. The officer testified in the early stages of Kashawa’s trial in March last year that the intruder left her house with a watch, a cellphone, a necklace and a police service medal that he had stolen from her and another occupant of the house.
The court has also heard that after Kashawa had been felled by a bullet that was fired by another police officer who lived in the area, the items stolen from the female officer’s house and also a cash box that had been stolen in an armed robbery in the same area that same night were found with him.
Those events took place during the early morning hours of 17 April 2010.
The female officer identified Kashawa as the intruder when she testified. She also told the court that Kashawa was the person who had broken into her house at night on 25 November 2009, held her at gunpoint, and raped her.
Kashawa is also accused of having raped another woman at the officer’s house during the incident in November 2009, and to have raped a third woman during the intrusion into the officer’s house in April 2010.
He disputed all of those allegations yesterday.
“They are alleging it’s me. They lied to this court, they are lying,” he said at one point in his testimony.
Kashawa’s response to the female police officer’s identification of him as the man who had attacked her twice in her house, was: “That was not me. I even do not know where this address is.”
He also told the judge he was not in Windhoek on 25 November 2009, but was in northern Namibia for the funeral of his eldest brother.
Kashawa further disputed prosecution witnesses’ testimony that items stolen during the incidents on 17 April 2010 were found with him after he had been shot in the leg. He said no stolen goods were found with him, and that was why none of the items allegedly recovered from him were in court as exhibits in his trial.
Kashawa denied guilt on 21 charges – which include five counts of rape, two counts of attempted murder, three charges of housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery, one charge of attempted rape, three counts of pointing of a firearm, and charges of possession of a firearm and ammunition without a licence – when his trial began in March last year.
Following a break in the trial, Kashawa began to testify in his own defence after Judge Siboleka yesterday declined an application to discharge him after the end of the prosecution’s case. Judge Siboleka remarked in his ruling it was clear that prosecution witnesses’ testimony established a case against Kashawa and that he was obliged to provide an answer to the evidence before the court.
Kashawa, who is being kept in custody, is due to return to the witness stand when the trial continues on 15 October.
He is being represented by defence lawyer Ndapewa Shipopyeni. State advocate Palmer Kumalo is prosecuting.
