Treason trial 10 allowed to appeal against jail terms

THE ten men who received lengthy prison terms of either 30 or 32 years each at the end of the second Caprivi high-treason trial may appeal to the Supreme Court against their sentences, it was ruled in the High Court in Windhoek on Friday.

Acting Judge, John Manyarara, sentenced the ten men in the High Court on August 8 2007. They had been convicted of high treason for having been involved in a plot to secede the Caprivi Region from Namibia through armed means between September 1998 and December 2003.Frederick Isaka Ntambilwa, Hoster Simasiku Ntombo and John Mazila Tembwe, who had been in custody for between five years and four years and ten months before the sentencing, were given jail terms of 30 years each. Progress Kenyoka Munuma, Shine Samulandela, Manepelo Manuel Makendano, Alex Sinjabata Mushakwa and Diamond Samuzala Salufu, who had been in custody for more than three years and seven months before their trial was finalised, and Boster Mubuyaeta Samuele and Alex Mafwila Liswani, who had been in custody for more than four years and eight months, were all sentenced to 32 years’ imprisonment each.On Friday, Acting Judge Manyarara ruled that the ten men could appeal to the Supreme Court against the sentences they received at the end of their often-stormy trial.Having again read the record of the trial, he was convinced that there are reasonable prospects of success on appeal of the sentences, in that another court might arrive at a different conclusion and alter the sentences, Acting Judge Manyarara added.The ten men were not successful with their application to be given leave to appeal against their conviction, though.’One has only to read the record to realise that it is beyond dispute and that it is of the applicants’ making that they were convicted of the offence charged, high treason, by refusing to give evidence or to instruct counsel to challenge State evidence, insisting that they only wanted the Directorate of Legal Aid to get them lawyers who would challenge Namibia’s occupation of the Caprivi Region and so on,’ Acting Judge Manyarara stated.The second Caprivi high treason trial started in September 2005 with the hearing of evidence for a special plea in which the High Court’s jurisdiction over the twelve men – who were then still on trial – was challenged. The twelve accused men claimed that they had been abducted from Botswana to be put on trial in Namibia.After Acting Judge Manyarara dismissed the challenge to the court’s power to try the twelve accused, they turned their sights to the Judge himself, asking him to recuse himself from continuing to preside over the trial.In his ruling on Friday, Acting Judge Manyarara recounted the events that followed after he turned down the application for his recusal: ‘The record shows that, after my refusal to recuse myself, I went out of my way to assist the applicants in the trial but they spurned the offer and did their worst to disrupt the trial by singing and shouting and sloganeering, to the extent that they were constantly reminded to show respect to the proceedings and, ultimately committed for contempt of court and excluded from the rest of the trial unless they changed their behaviour – which they flatly refused to do.’As a result, the only evidence before the court came from the State and, in the absence of any challenge, the court was left in no doubt that the State had proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the applicants were guilty of high treason and convicted them accordingly. The court adheres to its judgement,’ Acting Judge Manyarara said.He made a point of telling the ten sentenced men – who were sitting quietly in the dock as they listened to him reading out his ruling – that although he has turned down their applications to be allowed to appeal against their conviction, they can still direct a petition to the Supreme Court in which they can ask to be given leave to appeal against their convictions as well.This will have to be done before July 24, they were told.Deputy Prosecutors General Danie Small and Annemarie Lategan have been representing the prosecution in the trial of the ten men.