Goreangab ‘terroriser’ to be tried next year
A man who is accused of robbing and preying on lone women in the Windhoek’s informal settlement of Goreangab area is now scheduled to go on trial next year in the Katutura Magistrate’s Court.
Prosecutor Ellen Shipena yesterday informed the court the State’s diary was full for the year and proposed that the trial be rolled over to next year.
Fillipus Hamutenya’s case was on the court’s roll for a plea and trial.
Magistrate Alice Gawanas made an order to postpone the matter to 10 June 2021 for the trial to begin.
Hamutenya was arrested on 3 August 2019, after he had allegedly broken into a shack where a couple was sleeping in Goreangab.
He allegedly tied up and blindfolded the man.
Thereafter, he proceeded to tie the woman and sexually violated her.
Members of the public followed the suspect to his shack, where they brutally assaulted him.
They said they were tired of his crimes. Residents who identified their stolen goods found in Hamutenya’s shack proceeded to remove all their stolen items and laid them outside.
The public meted out mob justice before calling the police to arrest the suspect.
The suspect was allegedly brutally beaten up – and at the time, a citizen’s arrest was made before he was handed over to the police.
He was later hospitalised due to the injuries.
A video of the suspect brutally beaten by the mob went viral on social media.
In the video, the suspect could be seen badly bruised and finding it very hard to stand and walk by himself.
It is alleged Hamutenya, who is well known to the community, would force his way into shacks, force his victims to cook food for him and then rape them before stealing from them.
There are currently four to five cases of rape reported, the suspect cannot be linked to them yet and police investigations are still underway.
The police said, although he is suspected of rape, there is currently no case opened against him.
Hamutenya is scheduled to be tried on one count of possession of suspected stolen goods.