Eveline de Klerk

SWAKOPMUND - Three trial awaiting murder suspects, who escaped from the Swakopmund Police station holding cells were each sentenced to 18- months imprisonment for escaping from lawful custody. 

The prisoners, Lazarus Fabianus (24), Matias Nujoma (27), Ngenokesho Stephanus and Daniel Nghilifa Stefanus (24) escaped from police custody in February this year after they allegedly cut the burglar bars of their holding cells window with an unknown object.  

They were arrested a week later by Nampol and their Angolan counterparts at Oshihedi Sheengombe village in Angola. However, Daniel Nghilifa Stephanus is still at large.

 State Prosecutor Latoya Katjitundu during the sentencing of the suspects, objected fines to the suspects, saying that they committed a serious offence, which could have resulted in them not being prosecuted for the murders they committed, had they not been rearrested.

Fabianus and Daniel were in custody for the alleged murder of the elderly Swakopmund couple, Siegfried and Roswietha Strzelecki, whom they viciously attack and robbed during housebreaking in 2017.

Siegfried could successfully identify one of his attackers, who had also previously worked for them but died due to complications resulting from the attack.  His wife died two weeks after the brutal attack.  

 Ngenokesho and Nujoma were in custody for allegedly killing a security guard in March 2016 at Walvis Bay.  The duo along with a third suspect allegedly attacked and stabbed Joseph Ndeyapo Hekandjo while he was in the backseat of a taxi parked in front of AP Lounge in Kuisebmond.