Human trafficking trial starting at the end of June

WINDHOEK, 06 JUN – The trial of a South African national accused of 19 human trafficking and rape offences committed in Namibia in 2012, will begin in the High Court at the end of this month.
High Court Judge President Petrus Damaseb has been assigned to preside over the trial that starts on 27 June.
The date for the start of the trial was decided upon as per an agreement reached by the accused’s government-funded defence lawyer Mese Tjituri and State Advocate Felistas Shikerete-Vendura in court on Wednesday.
The date was made public when the 47-year-old Martinus Pretorius made another appearance before High Court Deputy Judge-President Hosea Angula during a pre-trial conference of case management review on Wednesday.
Pretorius, a former South African police officer, also faces other charges emanating from coercive circumstances in which the alleged rape and human trafficking offences took place. These include assault by threat, common assault and malicious damage to property.
He allegedly raped three minor girls aged between 13 and 14 in Swakopmund in 2012 before fleeing the country in September of that year.
Pretorius was arrested in South Africa in April 2016, after which the extradition process commenced and concluded in December 2017, when he was finally brought back to Namibia to face the charges.
He was employed at Rössing Uranium Mine near Arandis when the alleged crimes took place.
His co-accused, Namibian Johanna Lukas who allegedly provided the minor girls to Pretorius on four occasions between April and May 2012, was sentenced to 13 years’ direct imprisonment on counts of human trafficking and rape.
The judgement was handed down by Judge President Damaseb in August 2015.
Pretorius is alleged to have paid Lukas N.dollars 10 000.
Lukas is the first person in Namibia to be convicted of trafficking children for sexual exploitation.
Pretorius remains in police custody at the Windhoek Central Correctional Facility, pending the start of his trial on 27 June this year.
(NAMPA)