Africa-Press – Namibia. SWAPO National Assembly member Tobie Aupindi can expect to hear in three weeks’ time if his appeal against being convicted on a charge under the Anti-Corruption Act has been successful.
Judges Christie Liebenberg and Herman January reserved their judgement on the appeal of Aupindi and businessman Antonio di Savino after hearing oral arguments in the Windhoek High Court on Friday. The judges said their decision on the appeal would be handed down on 4 October.
Aupindi and Di Savino were found guilty on a charge of providing false information to an agent of the Anti-Corruption Commission in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in October 2018. They were each sentenced to a fine of N$50 000 or 30 months’ imprisonment. Both men paid the fine.
The charge, under the Anti-Corruption Act, was based on an allegation that Aupindi and Di Savino had lied to an ACC investigator in March and April 2010 by telling him that Aupindi himself had paid N$50 000 for the installation of a swimming pool at his house in Windhoek in December 2006, while they knew Di Savino had actually paid for the pool.
It has been claimed that at the time the pool was installed Di Savino was doing business with Namibia Wildlife Resorts, where Aupindi was the managing director.
Aupindi and Di Savino denied guilt on the charge and an alternative count of defeating or obstructing the course of justice during their trial, which began in February 2012.
During the trial, a former owner of the pool installation company Lic Pool Centre, Michael Kuhn, who testified as a defence witness, told the court Aupindi himself paid for a swimming pool installed at his house in Windhoek in December 2006.
However, the witness’s brother, Herman Kuhn, who was employed at Lic Pool Centre and was a state witness during the trial, testified that Di Savino paid for the swimming pool at Aupindi’s house.
In arguments filed at the High Court, Aupindi’s defence lawyer Richard Metcalfe argued that when magistrate Helvi Shilemba concluded she preferred the evidence of Herman Kuhn, she forgot that there was documentary evidence before the court which showed receipts had been issued to Aupindi for two payments of N$25 000 each to Lic Pool Centre.
An Anti-Corruption Commission investigator went out of his way to conceal the proofs of payment made by Aupindi from the prosecution and the court, Metcalfe added.
He argued that the magistrate did not properly evaluate the testimony of the two brothers and was wrong in accepting the evidence given by Herman Kuhn.
Di Savino’s lawyer Damian Esau argued that Herman Kuhn was not a reliable witness. Kuhn also conceded that he could not dispute that Aupindi in fact paid for his swimming pool himself, Esau stated. State advocate Hesekiel Iipinge defended the magistrate’s verdict.
Iipinge noted there was evidence that Di Savino had paid N$38 000 to another company to have a swimming pool installed at Aupindi’s house. He argued the only inference that could be drawn from a payment of N$50 000, which Di Savino made to Lic Pool Centre in December 2006, was that this was also to pay for a pool at Aupindi’s house, after the first company had been dismissed from the job.
Aupindi was elected as a member of the Swapo politburo and central committee in December 2017 and was elected to the National Assembly on the Swapo party list in November 2019.
