Windhoek court drops firearms theft case against eight officers

A Case in which eight police officers were accused of stealing close to 200 firearms from the Namibian Police has been struck off the court roll in the Windhoek Regional Court.

The case was struck from the roll last Thursday, after magistrate Justine Asino refused to grant the state a postponement to January next year.

The eight accused in the matter were jointly charged with two counts of theft of firearms, involving 180 pistols in total, corruptly using an office or position for gratification, and disguising the unlawful origin of property, alternatively acquisition, possession or use of proceeds of unlawful activities.

The state accused them of stealing 180 pistols from the Namibian Police between 2009 and November 2021.

The firearms are suspected to have been smuggled to South Africa, where firearms stolen from the Namibian Police allegedly ended up in the hands of gang members operating in the criminal underworld of Cape Town.

The trial of the eight accused charged in the matter was scheduled to start in the Windhoek Regional Court last Wednesday.

However, the magistrate was informed that the state asked for a postponement of the case because firearms confiscated in South Africa and needed as evidence in the matter have not been returned to Namibia yet.

Asino recorded that investigations in the matter are not concluded, and struck the case from the court roll.

This means the eight accused are at this stage off the hook on the charges they were facing. The state can, however, later again summon them to court to stand trial.

The eight accused were Loini Shoondi, Kavari Mutuari, Frederick Vilonel, Laban Hoveka, Paulus Halwoodi, Bernabe Shuudifonya, Mweshininga Tomas and Ina Anyala.

Except for the four charges that the eight accused faced jointly, Shoondi, Vilonel, Halwoodi, Shuudifonya and Anyala were also individually charged with alleged offences connected to the unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition and theft of police property.
All of the eight accused were free on bail.

GANG LINKS

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (Gi-Toc) stated in a publication on gang activities in the Western Cape this month that evidence about the smuggling of firearms from Namibia to South Africa first came to light when a cache of 12 firearms was seized by the police in Cape Town after a vehicle search in October 2020.

The organisation also reported that in a Namibian Police memo, it was recorded in August 2023 that several pistols seized in South Africa were engraved with “NPW”, an abbreviation for “Namibian Police weapon”, although the firearms’ serial numbers had been filed off.

Gang members in Cape Town first reported in 2016 that Namibia was one of their sources of firearms, the organisation stated as well.

It further reported that the South African Police Service and the Namibian Police have been investigating the smuggling of firearms from Namibia to the Western Cape since a cache of police pistols was found in a vehicle in October 2020.

Evidence continues to come to light that a firearms smuggling route between Namibia and the Western Cape is more widely used than first thought, with weapons obtained from police and military sources being involved, the Gi-Toc also reported in its publication.

One of the ways weapons are being smuggled across the border between Namibia and South Africa is in lorries transporting fresh goods such as fruit and flowers, the organisation stated.

The South African Police Service’s directorate for priority crime investigation reported in April last year that a Namibian citizen, Urbanus Shaumbwako, was sentenced in the Cape Town Regional Court to an effective prison term of 20 years after he had been convicted on 17 charges linked to the discovery of 12 unlicensed firearms in his possession in Cape Town in October 2020.

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