Staff Reporter
THE sentencing mitigating hearing for Marcus Thomas and Kevan Townsend who were convicted of murder this month has been moved to October.
According to High Court Christie Liebenberg, the postponement occurred unexpectedly as the state prosecutor, Advocate Antonia Verhoef, is currently in South Africa due to a family bereavement.
The two men were found guilty of killing André Peter Heckmaier, who was 25 years old at the time, with direct intent on January 7, 2011, in the district of Windhoek.
In his ruling, Judge Liebenberg remarked that, although there isn’t direct evidence linking Thomas and Townsend to the commissioning of the murder, circumstantial evidence clearly demonstrates that the convicted murderers jointly planned their actions and acted with a common purpose when setting the scene to murder the deceased. It was further established that there is evidence that on the same day of their arrival from America, Thomas inquired about the deceased, portraying himself and Townsend as friends of the deceased, and successfully obtained the cell phone number of the deceased.
They will now only return to court on 11 October for the pre-sentencing hearing and submissions of the sentence mitigating factors. Thomas is represented by Salomon Kanyemba, while Townsend is represented by Mbanga Siyomunji.
Leave a Reply