A long-term prisoner serving a sentence of life imprisonment over the murder of his wife and dismemberment of her body more than 25 years ago is again suing Namibia’s prison authorities in an attempt to get released on parole.
In a case argued in the Windhoek High Court yesterday, prison inmate Thomas Florin is asking the court to declare that he is immediately eligible to be considered for release on parole, and to direct the chairperson of the National Release Board and the Institutional Release Committee to immediately consider him for release on parole and to make a recommendation on that issue to the commissioner general of the Namibian Correctional Service.
In the alternative, Florin is asking the court to declare that the minimum period of 25 years in prison that an inmate sentenced to life imprisonment should serve in terms of the Correctional Service Act of 2012, before the person is eligible to be considered for release on parole, is inconsistent with the Constitution’s protection of respect for human dignity, equality and freedom from discrimination, and fair trial.
Florin (56), who is a citizen of Germany, has been behind bars since June 1998, when he was arrested in connection with the killing of his wife, Monika Florin (30), at Swakopmund in early June 1998.
He was accused of having murdered his wife and thereafter cutting up her body, stripping it of its flesh, cooking the remains and hiding her bones in the ceiling of their house.
Florin denied guilt during his trial in the High Court.
After he was convicted of murder, violating a dead human body, attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice and three other offences, the trial judge sentenced him to life imprisonment in December 1999.
The judge also recommended to the prison authorities that Florin should not be released before he had served at least 15 years of his sentence.
In 2020, Florin filed a case in the High Court in which he asked the court – unsuccessfully, it turned out – to declare he was entitled to receive a reduction of one third of the effective prison term of at least 25 years which a sentence of life imprisonment is regarded as under the 2012 Correctional Service Act.
Florin’s application was dismissed in March last year.
In the case in which judge Boas Usiku heard oral arguments yesterday, Florin is saying he committed his crimes on 2 June 1998, when the 1959 Prisons Act was still in force in Namibia. However, by the time of his sentencing in December 1999, the Prisons Act of 1998 had come into operation.
Under the 1959 Prisons Act, someone sentenced to life imprisonment was eligible to be considered for release on parole after having served 10 years of their sentence.
The prison authorities’ view is that someone sentenced to life imprisonment when the 1998 Prisons Act was in force and under the Correctional Service Act of 2012 has to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison before they can be eligible to be considered for release on parole. This was also a conclusion reached by the Supreme Court in a judgement delivered in August 2016.
According to Florin, though, the date when an offender committed the crimes for which they were sentenced to life imprisonment, and not the date of their sentencing, should determine which parole regime is applicable to them.
Florin says in an affidavit filed at the court that the judgement on his application for an order declaring that he was entitled to receive a one-third reduction of his effective minimum sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment included a finding that he is serving his sentence under the 1959 Prisons Act.
He also claims he should have been eligible for parole to be considered in December 2009, but there has been “an obstinate refusal” by the National Release Board to consider him for parole, and this is an infringement of his basic human rights.
South African senior counsel Roelof du Plessis, assisted by Apie Small and instructed by Stoan Horn, represented Florin during the hearing yesterday.
Deputy government attorney Mkhululi Khupe, who represented the prison authorities, argued that the NCS is correctly administering Florin’s sentence.
Florin was sentenced after the 1998 Prisons Act came into operation, and since the 2012 Correctional Service Act came into force, his sentence now falls under that later law, Khupe argued.
He noted that this was also the Supreme Court’s finding in its August 2016 judgement, which he argued is binding on the High Court.
Usiku postponed the delivery of his judgement in the matter to 15 March.
Leave a Reply