The trial of three Windhoek City Police members accused of having murdered a teenager whom they suspected of theft has been halted by an attempt by the prosecution to get the Supreme Court to intervene in the matter.
A brief appearance by Windhoek City Police officers Werner Johannes Shetekela, Kleopas Shiikalepo Kapalanga and Elia Nakale ended in the High Court at the Windhoek Correctional Facility yesterday with their case being postponed to 7 March next year.
The case was postponed after state advocate Cliff Lutibezi informed judge Dinnah Usiku that the prosecution would be asking the Supreme Court to review rulings that she made in the trial in November last year, and in September this year.
Shetekela (34), Kapalanga (32) and Nakale (37) are being prosecuted on counts of murder, kidnapping and defeating or obstructing the course of justice. They denied guilt on all of the charges when their trial started in June last year.
The prosecution is alleging that the three officers assaulted the 17-year-old Mandela Ramakhutla in Windhoek on 16 April 2013 after he had been arrested in connection with a theft committed at the City of Windhoek head offices earlier that month.
Ramakhutla was delivered to the Windhoek Central Police Station to be detained after the alleged assault. The three accused officers allegedly told police officers at the station he was drunk, or merely pretending to be ill or injured. Officers at the station did not place Ramakhutla in the holding cells, it is claimed in the indictment setting out the charges against the three officers, but took him to a hospital, where he died a week later on 24 April 2013.
In the first ruling that the state wants the Supreme Court to review and set aside, judge Usiku refused to allow Lutibezi to cross-examine a witness who testified for the defence, and also refused to allow another prosecutor to test the witness' testimony through cross-questioning.
Her ruling was based on the fact that the witness had initially been a potential state witness with whom Lutibezi consulted, before deciding not to make use of his testimony, and to instead make him available to the defence as a witness.
The second ruling by judge Usiku that the state wants to ask the Supreme Court to review and overturn is a refusal to hear an application by Lutibezi to have the former state witness who testified as a witness for the defence called back to court to be cross-examined by the state.
Further dates for the continuation of the trial will be decided on 7 March next year if the Supreme Court's decision on the prosecution's request to have judge Usiku's rulings reviewed is available by then.
Shetekela, Kapalanga and Nakale remain free on bail in the meantime.
They are being represented by defence lawyers Boris Isaacks, Willem Visser and Kadhila Amoomo.
