An appeal against the order issued by the South African State President which stopped the trial of six soldiers accused of murdering SWAPO leader Immanuel Shifidi, was heard in the Windhoek Supreme Court at the end of August. Judgment was reserved.
Shifidi, a SWAPO veteran who was released from long-term imprisonment on Robben Island in 1984, was killed when about 50 soldiers dressed in civilian clothes and armed with various weapons attacked a SWAPO meeting in Windhoek on 30 November 1986. An inquest into his death revealed that the soldiers had been bussed to the rally from an army base in the north. The operation had been organised by army officers, including Colonel Willem Welgemoed, commander of 101 Battalion at Ondangua, and Colonel J H Vorster of military headquarters in Windhoek.
Welgemoed, Vorster and four other army personnel were charged with murder, but in March 1988 State President Botha halted the trial by invoking Section 103 of the Defence Act. This indemnifies soldiers and police from criminal prosecution if they are deemed to have acted 'in good faith' for 'the suppression of terrorism in an operational area'.
The appeal against the order was brought by Hilda Shifidi, daughter of the dead man. Her counsel argued that no evidence had been provided by the six soldiers to contradict the inquest evidence. It was submitted that: 'The football field in question in a residential suburb of Windhoek ... was not an operational area. Furthermore, the State President could not have formed a lawful opinion that the planned, intentional and violent disruption of a lawful and peaceful meeting was for the purposes of, or in connection with, the prevention or suppression of terrorism.'
In a similar case heard a week previously, Victoria Mweuhanga contested an order, issued under the same section of the Defence Act, stopping the trial of four South African Defence Force members accused of murdering her husband, Frans UAPOTA, in November 1985.
Mweuhanga submitted evidence that a group of soldiers had appeared while she, her husband and some friends were sitting outside a shop in northern Namibia. The soldiers ordered them all to lie on the ground, and then took Uapota a short distance away, where they blindfolded him, tied a rope around his neck and repeatedly assaulted him. She found his body the following day. Four soldiers were eventually charged with his murder, but the proceedings were terminated by order of State President Botha.
'Nobody could honestly believe that a group of armed soldiers was acting in good faith when they battered the skull of a 46-year old unarmed man of slight build, broke his neck, partially strangulated him with a rope, broke nine of his ribs and ruptured his spleen, and left him with multiple bruises, abrasions and burns on his arms, thorax, abdomen and back', argued counsel for Mweuhanga, citing the inquest findings. Judgment in this case was also reserved.
