Police partly to blame for suicideThursday, July 24, 2008
Werner Menges
The NamibianA CASE in which the mother and former girlfriend of a murder suspect, who committed suicide in 2004, sued the Minister of Safety and Security over the incident, has returned to the High Court with a ruling that the Police can only be held partially liable for the suspect's death.
Sam Nepunda shot and killed himself with his own pistol in an office at the Namibian Police's Serious Crime Unit in Windhoek on January 29 2004.
He was being interrogated in connection with the murder of his girlfriend, Mathilda Agnes Immanuel, in Windhoek four days earlier.
She was found shot dead outside a house in Lister Street in Windhoek West.
According to the Police, it was later established that Nepunda's pistol had been used to kill her.
PRIME SUSPECT With Nepunda having told a senior member of the Serious Crime Unit, Detective Inspector Michael Booysen, that the gun had been in his possession on the day of the murder, Nepunda soon turned into the prime suspect.
He never stood trial, though.
While still under questioning, Booysen left Nepunda waiting in a corridor at the Serious Crime Unit's offices while he went to another office to make a phone call.
He had left Nepunda's Makarov pistol and ammunition in an unlocked cupboard in his office.
Nepunda got into the office, took the gun, and killed himself.
With that, it was case closed as far as the murder of Immanuel was concerned.
Nepunda's death however was the start of legal proceedings of another kind.
His mother, Lusia Nepunda, and the mother of a son of Nepunda, Fransina Yoleni Shaanika, decided to sue the Ministry for the loss of support from Nepunda that they claimed to have suffered as a result of negligence on the part of the Police.
Judge President Petrus Damaseb ruled against the claims in February last year, when he decided that there was such a lack of evidence on the circumstances of Nepunda's death that it was not necessary for the Minister to respond to the evidence placed before him on behalf of Mrs Nepunda and Shaanika.
After an appeal to the Supreme Court was lodged against the Judge President's ruling, though, Government lawyers abandoned the judgement that had been given in the Minister's favour, and the case returned to the High Court for a hearing to continue before Judge President Damaseb at the end of May.
Last week, the Judge President again dismissed Mrs Nepunda's claim.
She had claimed that, as an old age pensioner, she was so poor and needy she depended on financial assistance from her late son.
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