Fraud accused couple challenges arrest

Coenraad Botha and his wife, Zimbabwean national Charlotte Murove, made a first appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday afternoon on charges of contravening the Banking Institutions Act, the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and fraud.

The couple allegedly took money from investors, amounting to more than N$160 million, without authorisation from the Bank of Namibia.

Botha and Murove face 64 charges.

The State opposed bail and Sisa Namandje, who was instructed by Afrika Jantjies, told magistrate David Mukuyu that they do not need bail as his clients were unlawfully arrested and brought before court.

According to Namandje, the offences of contravening the Banking Act and Poca are not schedule one offences, which gives the police the right to arrest without a warrant of arrest. In this case he argued, his clients right to liberty were violated by the police when they arrested his clients with a warrant of arrest.

The magistrate then held an inquiry into the arrests.

The officer who affected the arrests, detective inspector Joel Shikongo, told the court they received intelligence that Botha and Murove were planning to flee Namibia for Dubai, through Botswana and South Africa, and they had to stop them.

He further said the intelligence also stated that the couple had sold their household furniture. He further said they could not wait for a warrant of arrest to be issued as they were afraid the couple would be lost to them. Shikongo further said the couple was arrested on a case that is already opened against them in 2022 and that in any event, he arrested them on a charge of fraud, which is a schedule one offence that allows him to effect an arrest without a warrant. Nonsense, said Namandje.

He said the mention of fraud was an afterthought by the officer.

According to Namandje, his clients are adamant that the officer, when he arrested them, only told them they were arrested on suspicion they contravened the Banking Act and Poca and did not mention fraud at all.

Botha, in his evidence, also told the court the police never mentioned fraud, either at Buitepos Police Station where they were first detained after being escorted from the Trans Kalahari Border Post, or in Windhoek where they were officially charged.

Magistrate Mukuyu will deliver his ruling on the lawfulness of the arrests today.