Poacher stories changed months after incident

The attempted murder claims made by three men during testimony at the trial of Kai Rust this week, that he had shot at them as they fled the scene where Andreas Ukandanga had died from a gunshot wound last January, conflicted with their first police

statements.

Rust's advocate, Jan Wessels, informed the court during his cross-examination of the three witnesses, who had joined Ukandanga on an illegal hunt on the Rust farm that day, that not one of the initial police statements following the shooting contained allegations that he tried to kill them and that bullets “struck the sand” while they ran.

Two of the witnesses, Ndara Ndjamba and Murongo Hausiku, gave police new witness statements more than eight months after the shooting, claiming then that Rust had shot at them as they fled.

However, Hausiku, when he was handed the second statement he provided to police in August that year, told the court yesterday: “It is my statement, but it is not my signature.”

He could not explain or attribute the stranger's signature on his second statement.

Another witness statement taken shortly after the shooting incident, from Hausiku's girlfriend, also did not contain the allegation of attempted murder, although Hausiku told the court yesterday that she was the first person he saw and talked to after the event that day.

“No comment,” Hausiku said when asked why she would not include such crucial details.





Hausiku, Ndjamba and a third witness, Ntsamba Nikanor, all repeated the phrase that the last two shots fired were aimed at them, and that they had seen the bullets “hit the sand” near their feet as they ran.



However, Wessels told that court that none of the witness statements, neither the initial ones nor those made later, contained references to the sand details repeatedly given during the testimony this week.







Changing stories



State witness Nikanor moreover changed his explanation for the absence of the allegations in his first statement on the stand during his cross-examination on Wednesday.



At first, he told Wessels that “I might not have given that information, but I did see the bullets hit the sand”, when explaining the lack of the allegation in his first police statement.



A few minutes later, he claimed “I told the police. I told all of them.”



“If you had told the police it would have been put in your signed statement, because that is the crux of your statement, that the accused tried to kill you,” Wessels said.



Hausiku also testified in court yesterday that he had seen Ukandanga fall and then saw how the second bullet hit the dog, killing it.



However, in his initial police statement given in January 2016, Hausiku told the police “I did not see any dog that was shot, and neither did I see a shooter.”



The first state witness, Ndara Ndjamba, during the first day of the trial on Tuesday, initially told Wessels that his first witness statement did not indicate that Rust had fired at him as he fled because the police “did not ask us”.



He later changed this statement under further cross-examination, after he was confronted about his second statement, given in October that year, when he told the police Rust had fired at him.



He told Wessels that he had in fact told police on “the first day … so they are the ones who didn't add it.”







Questions



Wessels yesterday informed the court that during Rust's first bail application in Okahandja, which was denied, the public prosecutor at the time told the court she was in possession of witness statements alleging Rust had fired at them as they fled.



“But at the time, the witness statements did not contain this,” Wessels argued in court yesterday.



“What horrifies me is in order to charge the accused with attempted murder, there should be statements under oath that shots were fired at you, but there were no such statements,” Wessels said.



During the testimony all three men testified that the day's events were put in motion when they received a call from Frans Ndjamba, a farmworker at Otukaruno, Rust's family farm, on the day of the shooting, informing them the farm owner was gone and “inviting” them to for an illegal hunt.



The men were later found guilty of poaching and fined.



They also agreed that when the first shot was fired Ukandanga immediately fell to the ground and that none initially saw the shooter or where the bullet had come from.



All four men testified that they heard four shots, and that the first shot killed Ukandanga.



According to the men they were processing the carcass near a “flat rock”, in an open area populated by a few low bushes.



The court was informed this week that Wessels will apply for permission to take Regional Court Magistrate Alexis Diergaardt to the scene of the shooting before the end of the trial, in order to provide a better understanding of the vegetation and other details there.



Wessels this week presented crime scene photos taken by the police's forensic team, which showed that while the rock did slope down towards the ground, it was 1.8 metres at its highest point and about 1.5 metres high at the point where the witnesses had told police Ukandanga had been crouching when a bullet hit him.



Wessels has put on the record that his client claims he did not aim the bullet at any person, and had fired in order to scare off one of the hunting dogs, after which the bullet ricochet and hit Ukandanga accidentally, killing him.



The trial will continue on 22 June.