Arnold HANS, Secretary of the Windhoek Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, and Alex KAMAUNJU, a member of SWAPO, were acquitted on 15 March 1982 of charges of having unlawfully aided persons to leave the country without passports. Originally four people were to have appeared in court, but charges were withdrawn against Moses TJIRAMBA and Emmanuel MUATARA. Hans, Muatara and Kamaunju had been detained under Proclamation AG9 at the end of January. Muatara was released from detention on 28 February, and all charges against him were withdrawn.
The charges against Hans and Kamaunju were based on the arrest of four persons, three women and one man, near the Botswana border on 21 January 1981. They claimed to have lost direction and had wandered around aimlessly. All four were convicted at Gobabis magistrate's court of having ventured to leave the country illegally and sentenced to six months imprisonment. After being questioned by security police in Gobabis, the three women, Lea HISIKA, Sarah MUFETI and Belinda ONESMUS, were transferred to Windhoek to appear as state witnesses against Hans and Kamaunju. At the trial, however, the women denied that Hans and Kamaunju had helped them in any way, saying that the security police had coerced them to sign false statements. Hisika stated that a security police officer wrote a statement which he asked her to sign. He threatened that if she refused, her sentence would be extended and she would be tortured. Onesmus also refuted her statement as being false. As a result, the two men were acquitted and the public prosecutor applied to the Windhoek lower court to have the witnesses declared as hostile to the state. The three women were due to appear in court on 29 March on charges of perjury.
