Staff Reporter<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JOHANNES Saul Claasen, a man accused of stabbing his girlfriend, Ridensia Lamberth (28), to death in December 2020, after allegedly seeing gay ghosts in their bedroom, has been found guilty by High Court Judge Dinah Usiku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Claasen faced three charges, which include murder, attempted murder, as well as assault with intent to cause Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state is alleging that Claasen murdered his then girlfriend, Ridensia Lamberth (28), at Keetmanshoop on 25 December 2020 by stabbing her in the chest with a knife. Claasen is also accused of attempting to murder his and Lamberth\u2019s 11-month-old daughter by stabbing her in the neck and in the back of her head during the same incident that claimed Lamberth\u2019s life. He is further accused of assaulting Lamberth at Keetmanshoop during March 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Claasen denied guilt on the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the interrogation, Claasen explained that they were having fun the previous day, whilst consuming alcohol, whereafter he and the deceased went to sleep late in the evening of 24 December. It is alleged that his 11-month-old daughter, as well as the 11-year-old daughter of the deceased, also slept in the same room. The 11-year-old was later summoned as a state witness in the murder trial. The 11-year-old testified that she had seen Claasen take out a knife from in between the mattress while her mother had been sleeping, minutes before he took her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his account of what happened, Claasen related that the older child was already in bed and that he saw \u201cmoffie\u201d gay men in the shack. According to the accused, the gay men wanted to have sexual intercourse with him and he tried to wrestle with him, which led the accused to take his butcher knife and stab the gay man once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When he pulled the knife, he realised that it was not the gay person but his girlfriend, the deceased. When confronted about where he got hold of the knife, the accused explained that he took it out from the base and the mattress and placed it under the pillow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Kissah Mwambene, a specialist psychiatrist employed at the Mental Health Care Unit of the Windhoek Central Hospital, which conducted a psychiatric evaluation on the accused, testified that at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes in terms of s 78(2), the accused was capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his actions. Although he was under the influence of alcohol, he was criminally responsible for the offences that he is charged with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, in terms of s 79(4)(c) and 79(4)(d) of the Criminal Procedure Act, the accused is fit to stand trial and is accountable for the alleged crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another doctor, who had attended to Claasen in Keetmanshoop before he had been transferred to Windhoek to stand trial in the High Court, a certain Dr Sieberhagen, however, made a diagnosis that Claasen suffered from Rapid Eye Movement sleep disorder with automatism, non-pathological alcohol associated. His findings were that Claasen did not suffer from a mental disorder and he is able to stand trial and to conduct a defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, his findings are that Claasen, at the time of the alleged crimes, was unaware that he had acted. Had he understood the wrongfulness of such a deed, he would have had the capacity to act upon such understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judge Usiku, however, rejected the diagnosis of Sieberhagen and said that the eyewitness testimony of the 11-year-old daughter of the deceased, Lamberth, carries greater weight than the opinion of an expert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usiku said that although the witness was a minor at the time of the commission of the offence and her evidence should be treated with caution, she gave credible evidence which was corroborated by other witnesses concerning the accused\u2019s reputation for violence, the accused\u2019s previous assault on the deceased and his threats towards the deceased with a knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my view, a person in a state of temporary insanity will not be able to recall in such fine detail. The minor\u2019s version about the stabbing of the deceased on the chest as well as the stabbing of the victim remained the same and was corroborated by the medical doctors who attended to the victim as well as the one who conducted the post-mortem examination on the deceased\u2019s body,\u201d Usiku said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Picture for illustrative purposes only. Photo: File<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Staff Reporter JOHANNES Saul Claasen, a man accused of stabbing his girlfriend, Ridensia Lamberth (28), to death in December 2020, after allegedly seeing gay ghosts in their bedroom, has been found guilty by High Court Judge Dinah Usiku. Claasen faced three charges, which include murder, attempted murder, as well as assault with intent to cause …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":401830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n