Windhoek Serial Rapist Gets 60 Years in Jail

A serial rapist who carried out attacks on two teenage girls and two adult women in Windhoek in May 2007 and March 2010 was sentenced to an effective prison term of 60 years yesterday.

Jan Rooinasie (53) carried out brutal and vicious attacks on defenceless women and girls, and he deserves to be removed from the public for a very long time, judge Alfred Siboleka commented when he sentenced Rooinasie in the High Court at the Windhoek Correctional Facility.

Remarking that women have the right to move about doing their business freely and without fear, the judge told Rooinasie: “Those who take it upon themselves to terrorise them in our society deserve to be tackled with an iron fist.”

Rooinasie was sentenced to a prison term of 15 years on each of eight counts of rape on which he was found guilty on 28 March. The eight sentences on the rape charges amount to 120 years of imprisonment, but judge Siboleka ordered that half of that period would be suspended for a period of five years on condition that Rooinasie is not again convicted of rape committed during the period of suspension.

He was further sentenced to eight-year jail terms on each of three charges of attempted murder, of which he was also found guilty, but those sentences were ordered to run concurrently with the sentences on the eight counts of rape.

Two sentences of three months’ imprisonment on charges of indecent assault, as well as jail terms of six months and three months, respectively, on counts of crimen injuria, were likewise ordered to be served concurrently with the effective period of 60 years’ imprisonment on the rape charges.

Rooinasie was found guilty of one count of rape in connection with an incident that took place in Windhoek on 25 May 2007, when a 13-year-old girl who knew Rooinasie well was sexually assaulted by him at the house where he was living at that stage. He threatened the girl with a knife during that incident.

The judge also convicted Rooinasie of five further counts of rape in connection with an attack on a young woman near the Katutura Intermediate Hospital in Windhoek on 2 March 2010. The woman was attacked and repeatedly raped after a man later identified as Rooinasie had lured her into a bushy area by telling her he needed help for his pregnant girlfriend who had gone into labour nearby.

He was also found guilty over two similar attacks – one on another adult woman, and one on a 17-year-old girl – that took place in the same area near the Katutura Intermediate Hospital and the A1 highway on 6 and 22 March 2010. The assailant who carried out those attacks also used a story about needing help for a pregnant woman to lure his victims towards a thicket, where he threatened them with a knife, strangled them until they lost consciousness, and then raped them.

One of the women attacked by Rooinasie testified in aggravation of sentence during a pre-sentence hearing last month. She told the court that, eight years after the event, she still experienced nightmares and sleepless nights because of the experience she went through.

Having been attacked and violated by someone she was trying to help, she has resolved never to trust or help other people again, the judge recounted her testimony. She asked the court to remove Rooinasie from society.

Following the delivery of judge Siboleka’s verdict, the court was informed that Rooinasie has a long record of previous convictions, starting in 1982 and including two convictions on counts of rape.

He was sentenced to an effective jail term of 18 months after he was found guilty of rape for the first time, in 1984. In 1988, after he had been convicted of rape for a second time, he was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.

Other crimes included in his record of previous convictions are four instances of theft, one case of housebreaking and theft, and one robbery, for which he was given a suspended sentence in 2010.

Defence lawyer Mbanga Siyomunji represented Rooinasie during his trial before judge Siboleka. Deputy prosecutor general Karin Esterhuizen represented the state.

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Source: The Namibian

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