Africa-Press – Namibia. AT the age of 58, a Gobabis resident is now waiting to be sentenced on a murder charge for the second time in his life.
Petrus Hoxobeb is due to be sentenced in the Windhoek High Court on 17 May, after judge Claudia Claasen yesterday heard final arguments from state advocate Ian Malumani and defence lawyer Eliaser Shiikwa on the sentence that is to be handed to Hoxobeb.
The judge was informed that Hoxobeb (58) – convicted of having murdered his girlfriend at Gobabis in July 2019 – was previously found guilty on a similar charge as well.
Following his first murder conviction, he was sentenced in the High Court to an effective prison term of 15 years in October 1995.
During a bail hearing in April last year, Hoxobeb told a judge he was convicted of murdering a former girlfriend in 1993. He said he killed her when he stabbed her with a knife, because he could not accept that she had ended their relationship.
Hoxobeb served 10 years of his sentence before he was released on parole.
On 14 July 2019, he killed again, when he stabbed his girlfriend, Josephine Afrikaner (26), with whom he had an extramarital relationship, nine times with a knife near a shebeen at Gobabis.
Hoxobeb surprised Afrikaner and attacked her while she was partly unclothed and on her haunches, answering a call of nature.
Claasen found him guilty on charges of murder, read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, and assault by threat a month ago.
Hoxobeb did not testify in mitigation of sentence yesterday.
Addressing the court on his behalf, Shiikwa said it would break Hoxobeb if he were to be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Shiikwa did not suggest any specific term of imprisonment to the judge, but asked her to either take the two charges together for sentencing, or to order that the sentences imposed on the two counts should run concurrently.
Malumani said Hoxobeb’s previous conviction showed he does not have respect for human life.
He argued Hoxobeb needs to be properly deterred and reformed, and suggested that the judge should sentence him to 32 years’ imprisonment on the murder charge and a four-year jail term for assault by threat.
Hoxobeb has been held in custody since his arrest in July 2019.
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