Alleged Zimbabwean bank robber asks for acquittal in Namibia

A SUSPECTED member of an alleged gang of Zimbabwean bank robbers is set to hear early in September if he will be discharged at the end of the prosecution's case in his trial.

Defence lawyer Profysen Muluti, who is representing bank robbery suspect Bakani Dube (43) in his trial in the Windhoek Regional Court, asked Magistrate Dinnah Usiku on Thursday last week to find Dube not guilty after the prosecution closed its case against him.

Muluti argued that the prosecution has not produced sufficient evidence on which any reasonable court could convict Dube.

Public Prosecutor Carol-Ann Esterhuizen opposed Muluti's request for Dube's discharge at this stage of his trial. She asked the magistrate to place Dube on his defence.

Magistrate Usiku is scheduled to give her ruling on the discharge application on September 9.

Dube is charged with one count of robbery with aggravating circumstances. He is accused of having been involved in an armed robbery in which N$197 543 was stolen from the Klein Windhoek branch of Standard Bank Namibia on March 9 2007.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge on July 12 this year.

Dube was arrested at Gobabis on March 16 2007.

Money in the form of Zimbabwe dollars and also some white money bags were found in his car when he was arrested.

The court has been told that the Police were put on Dube's trail after a call had been made to his cellphone from a cellphone that was stolen from a bank customer during the robbery.

Three other Zimbabweans - Plan Ndebele, Itai Mashamba, and Mthulishi Sibanda - were also charged in connection with the robbery in Klein Windhoek, after they were arrested following another bank robbery at Gobabis on May 22 2007.

Mashamba, Sibanda and Ndebele were further charged over a heist at the Okahandja branch of Standard Bank Namibia, in which N$217 069,03 was allegedly stolen by three armed men who held staff members of the bank at gunpoint on April 23 2007.

Mashamba escaped from custody in July 2007, Ndebele broke out of Windhoek Central Prison on November 27 2007 and drowned in the Okavango River at Divundu the next night, and Sibanda escaped from the Windhoek Magistrate's Court in Katutura following a court appearance on May 28 last year.

During Dube's trial, two people who were in the Klein Windhoek bank at the time of the heist pointed him out as having been one of the three men who carried out that robbery.

These witnesses however failed to point him out at an identification parade a few weeks after the robbery, Muluti reminded the court. He argued that their evidence on the identification of Dube while he was the only suspect in the dock before the witnesses could not be accepted as reliable.

Muluti also argued that other evidence before the court showed that Dube was not in Klein Windhoek at the time of the robbery.

Dube's cellphone call records indicate that about an hour before the robbery his phone was in the vicinity of Hosea Kutako International Airport east of Windhoek, while the phone was in the Gobabis area about half an hour after the heist.

The trial of the only person still charged in connection with the Okahandja heist following the escape of Mashamba, Sibanda and Ndebele also continued before Magistrate Usiku on Thursday.

Like Dube, Authernatious Phakathi has pleaded not guilty to a count of robbery with aggravating circumstances.

The court has heard that when he was arrested on the gravel road between Okahandja and the Ovitoto area, cash amounting to N$58 625 was found in his car and amongst some bushes next to the road.

Phakhati cooperated with the Police and told them that he had provided transport to Mashamba, Sibanda and Ndebele from Zimbabwe, after they had hatched a plan to stage the robbery before they travelled to Namibia, the court has also been told.

Phakhati's trial is now scheduled to continue on September 20.

He and Dube are both remaining in custody.