Former Swapo coordinator released on N$ 40 000 bail

WINDHOEK, 27 Apr – A man sentenced to a 10-year prison term for raping a former colleague in July 2013, has been released on bail of N.dollars 40 000.
Vincent Likoro was released on bail on Friday morning as per judgement handed down by High Court Judge Dinah Usiku, following the convict’s successful formal bail application brought before court.
Likoro has been set free until such a time the Windhoek Supreme Court pronounces itself and gives a ruling in respect of an appeal challenging his prison sentence, which is now pending before this court.
He was granted the opportunity to appeal against his sentence in the Supreme Court in a ruling handed down by High Court judges Johanna Taatsu Salionga and Dinah Usiku on 20 March 2018.
Likoro was set free on Friday morning in the presence of his privately-instructed defence lawyers, Jan Wessels and Louis Botes, members of his family, friends and prominent leaders of the Swapo party.
Likoro, a former Swapo coordinator for the Kavango regions, is now appealing against the prison sentence imposed on him by the Katima Mulilo Regional Court on 21 January 2016.
In the appeal bid, Likoro is claiming there was grave misdirection by the regional court at the time of the trial, judgement and sentencing by Magistrate Bongani Ndlovu in January 2016.
He further declared that there was another second grave misdirection by High Court judges Christie Liebenberg and Dinah Usiku when the two dismissed his first appeal attempt in the Windhoek High Court on 08 December 2017, ordering him to start serving his prison sentence with immediate effect.
He further alleged that the trial was not legally handled as per the strict provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977 and that Ndlovu rejected his version of events without allowing proper cross-examinations of State witnesses.
He is now asking the Supreme Court to look at all alleged irregularities that transpired in the regional court during trial.
Likoro was convicted and sentenced for sexual intercourse with a colleague without her consent on 07 July 2013 during an official trip to the Zambezi Region. He was a ministerial advisor in the then Ministry of Lands and Resettlement.
Dominic Lisulo appeared for the State during the bail hearing.
(NAMPA)