Africa-Press – Namibia. Seven of the men charged in the Fishrot fraud, corruption and racketeering case have again failed with an attempt to stop the prison authorities’ decision to move five of them to a different section of Windhoek Correctional Facility.
The seven accused, as applicants in a case against Namibia’s prison authorities and the minister of home affairs, immigration, safety and security, did not comply with the High Court’s rules for applications in civil matters, judge Boas Usiku said in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
Usiku concluded that an urgent application which the seven accused filed against the minister and prison authorities in May last year, and which was struck from the court roll in June, remains struck from the roll.
After the urgent application had been struck from the court roll due to a lack of urgency, the seven applicants amended the orders they were asking the court to make, but relied on the same court documents filed previously to continue with their case in the normal course and not on an urgent basis.
Usiku stated in his judgement yesterday: “The applicants ought to have served the amended notice of motion on the respondents and provided them with the requisite time within which to file their notice of opposition, if any, followed by its answering affidavit et cetera, as per the rules of the court.”
It was not proper for the applicants to have indicated that the respondents in the matter have already filed their answering affidavits, which was done in response to the urgent application in May last year, Usiku said.
The seven applicants are former attorney general and justice minister Sacky Shanghala, former National Fishing Corporation of Namibia (Fishcor) chief executive Mike Nghipunya, Shanghala’s business partner James Hatuikulipi, who is an ex-chairperson of Fishcor’s board of directors, Ricardo Gustavo, Pius Mwatelulo, Otneel Shuudifonya and Phillipus Mwapopi.
They applied for an order to stop the prison authorities from transferring five of them from the section of Windhoek Correctional Facility where they have been held in custody to another part of the prison, where they are detained with more awaiting-trial detainees than in the section where they were kept previously.
The prison authorities moved Hatuikulipi, Nghipunya, Gustavo, Mwatelulo and Shuudifonya to a part of the prison where they are held with the general population of awaiting-trial detainees at the start of May last year.
Although they have been relocated to a different section, where they spend nights, they are allowed to spend days in the previous section where they were kept and where they have access to computers and the internet, which they have said are needed to prepare for their trial, the court was informed last year.
According to the seven accused, the prison authorities’ decision to relocate some of them would cause damage and negatively affect their efforts to prepare their defence to the charges they are facing in their criminal case.
Acting judge Moses Chinhengo, to whom the criminal case has been assigned, has ordered that the criminal trial should proceed from 4 August.
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