Nineteenth Death in Main Treason Trial

Werner Menges

17 May 2011

The death toll among the suspects facing charges in the main Caprivi high treason trial has risen to 19.

The man who has been carrying the title of Accused Number 13 in the ongoing trial before Judge Elton Hoff, Bevin Joshua Tubwikale, died on April 30, Judge Hoff was told when the trial resumed yesterday after a five-week break in proceedings.

Tubwikale (42) died in Windhoek Central Hospital. On his death certificate the cause of his death is stated as “mesenteric twist”, which is a condition that occurs when a portion of the bowel twists around itself, cutting off blood supply to a part of the intestines.

Tubwikale died on the same day that he was admitted in hospital, having complained of stomach pains, the commanding officer of the Namibian Police’s high treason investigation unit, Deputy Commissioner Abraham Maasdorp, said yesterday.

Tubwikale is the nineteenth person charged in the main Caprivi high treason case to have died in custody.

With his death, 112 men are now remaining on trial before Judge Hoff.

Nine of the high treason suspects have died in custody since the first testimony in the trial was heard in late October 2003. Another ten of the accused men died before that point in the trial.

Tubwikale’s death is the first in the ranks of the high treason accused so far this year. Three of the suspects died last year, while one died in 2009, two in 2007, one in 2006 and four during 2003.

One high treason suspect who was among the people arrested in the case that became the second Caprivi high treason trial also died in custody before the start of that trial. With him included, 20 high treason suspects have so far died in custody since the first death in May 2000.

Tubwikale spent the last eleven years and nine months of his life in custody.

He was arrested at his home village, Mpacha, near the Mpacha military base close to Katima Mulilo, on August 2 1999. The arrest was carried out in the wake of surprise attacks that armed alleged separatists had launched on targets at Katima Mulilo in the early morning hours of that day.

Tubwikale claimed during a bail application in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court in late August 1999 that he was arrested without reason at his home.

He also told the court that he had left Namibia in late 1998 to seek political asylum in Botswana, and that he again returned to Namibia in June 1999.

In Botswana, Tubwikale said, he attended meetings where the idea that the Caprivi Region should secede from Namibia was propagated. At these meetings it was also said that military force had to be used to achieve the region’s secession, he confirmed.

He, too, believed in the cause of fighting to separate the Caprivi Region from Namibia, Tubwikale said.

Like all of his co-accused he was refused bail at the end of their application in court.

In the trial before Judge Hoff yesterday the court was also informed that a report on the mental state of one of the accused men, Isaya Shaft Kamwanga (32), has been completed.

The court ordered in November last year that Kamwanga should undergo a period of psychiatric observation to establish if he is fit to stand trial.

That was after Kamwanga’s defence lawyer, Jonathan Samukange, had expressed his doubts about his client’s mental health and his capacity to stand trial.

In the report, which was provided to Judge Hoff yesterday, a State psychiatrist, Dr Ndahambelela Mthoko, found that Kamwanga is not mentally ill and that he is fit to stand trial. Dr Mthoko stated that at the time the alleged offences Kamwanga is charged with were committed he knew what he was doing, was able to appreciate the wrongfulness of the alleged offence and could act in accordance with such an appreciation.

Samukange told the court he does not agree with the psychiatrist’s findings, although he is not an expert in psychiatry. He said he has asked another psychiatrist to also see Kamwanga and provide his own report to the court.

The trial is continuing.

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