Werner Menges
6 May 2008
Windhoek — A YOUNG man accused of shooting dead a drinking companion after a disagreement in a shebeen in Windhoek five years ago is set to hear the verdict in his murder trial in the High Court today.
"He just entered the shebeen, cocked it and said, 'do you know me?', pointing it at him," Petrus Saron, an eyewitness to the fatal shooting of shebeen patron Sydney Kamati, said last week.
He was recounting the moment when he claimed he saw murder suspect Collen Swartbooi enter a shebeen in Windhoek just before Kamati was shot in the head.
Swartbooi (25) himself had quite a different story to tel Acting Judge John Manyarara when he testified in his own defence last Tuesday.
"We wrestled, and as we wrestled a shot just went off," he said, telling Acting Judge Manyarara about a tussle between him and Saron as Saron tried to get control of the gun with which Swartbooi had entered the shebeen.
"I didn't cock the pistol. I just took it out," Swartbooi claimed. "I don't know who pulled the trigger." Kamati (24) was shot at a shebeen in Soweto in Katutura around mid-day on April 12 2003.
Swartbooi has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder and an alternative count of negligent discharge of a firearm that he is facing in connection with the shooting.
He has however admitted guilt to two further charges of illegal possession of a 7,65 mm calibre pistol, which belongs to his father, and ammunition for the pistol, and to another count of negligent discharge of a firearm which stems from the firing of a second shot outside the shebeen after Kamati had been shot.
According to Saron, Kamati had told Swartbooi to either buy his own drinks or leave the shebeen when Swartbooi asked Kamati, for the fourth time, for something to drink on the day of the incident.
According to Swartbooi, though, Kamati's response was much more robust and rude.
Swartbooi told the court that Kamati had told him to "f*** off", and called him something akin to "a rotten bastard".
After this exchange between the two men, Swartbooi left the shebeen.
When he returned after about ten minutes, he entered the shebeen with a pistol in his hand, which he cocked as he came into the bar and pointed the gun at Kamati, Saron testified.
"He entered the door, cocked the firearm and said, 'do you know me?'" Saron said.
Saron added that he grabbed Swartbooi's hand with the pistol and tried to turn it away from Kamati.
He and Swartbooi were still wrestling over control of the gun when Kamati was shot, Saron said.
"He really wanted to shoot at (Kamati)," Saron claimed. He insisted that the fatal shot did not go off accidentally. "It was fired directly," he said.
Swartbooi testified that Kamati suddenly started swearing at him and accusing him of wanting a share of the drinks that Kamati and Saron were having at the time.
He stood up and went home, Swartbooi said.
He said he was looking for a hair clipper on top of his father's cupboard when he found his father's pistol lying there.
He then decided to return to the shebeen with the pistol to threaten the man who had been swearing at him without reason.
Back at the shebeen, he pulled the pistol out from where he had stuck it into his trousers, pointed it at the floor, and asked Kamati why he had been saying such things to him, Swartbooi said.
Saron then came and grabbed his arm, starting the struggle that ended in a shot going off accidentally, Swartbooi said.
"It was not my intention to kill the deceased," he said.
"Why would I go and kill someone over something that is not that serious? It was just my intention to go and threaten him."
Swartbooi denied Saron's testimony that he had cocked the firearm as he entered the shebeen.
He added that his father had told him on the very morning that his trial started, five years after the event, that his father had cocked the pistol the previous night, after thieves had stolen some bicycles at their house, and left the gun like that on top of his cupboard.
Defence counsel Johan van Vuuren, who is representing Swartbooi, argued that the prosecution did not succeed to prove that Swartbooi was guilty either of murder or the negligent discharge of a firearm in connection with Kamati's death.
State advocate Sandra Miller, who is conducting the prosecution, argued that Swartbooi should be found guilty of murder.
Swartbooi's explanation of how the pistol got to be cocked and ready to fire was so unreasonable that it could be rejected as false beyond a reasonable doubt, she argued.
Swartbooi remains free on bail while the court's judgement is pending.
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