Improper collusion to defeat justice in Lubowski case
Charles Courtney-Clarke
The Namibian Newspaper in its recent front page article “LUBOWSKI CASE IN DEAD END”, by journalist Werner Menges omits new and cogent facts regarding the only comprehensive action taken in Namibia and South Africa since 1994 to bring those to justice for the crimes committed against the United Nations and the people of Namibia during the Untag period, 1 April 1989 – 21 March 1990. This needs to be reported by The Namibian in the public interest.
Prosecutor General Martha Imalwa’s quoted statement (that in the absence of credible new evidence she does not plan to prosecute anyone in connection with the murder of Anton Lubowski) is a public admission of the incapacity of the Namibian government, and particularly Swapo politicians and officials, to investigate unpunished crimes. This includes not only Lubowski’s assassination but all the political crimes in that period, committed against the UN during 1989 when their Outjo offices were bombed and a security guard killed.
At all times the cases were handled by identifiable ex-apartheid officials in the government into which SWAPO was integrated when it won election in1990. So, the Prosecutor General is therefore publicly requested to declare what SWAPO officials have done to resolve these crimes.
In the chain of legal events in pursuit of justice since 1994, formal complaints were made (in the form of new physical evidence for the motives of Lubowski’s murder) to request both the Namibian and South African governments' legal position on resolving the crimes of the period 1989 to 1992.A letter to the Directorate of Special Operations in South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, to which certain and relevant new evidence was attached, was also presented by Gaby Lubowski to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Namibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission and Prosecutor General Imalwa
The manner in which officials were defeating the ends of justice was detected and described precisely at an early stage in the legal proceedings into Lubowski’s murder when Justice Ismail Mahomed, who presided over the failed criminal case against Donald Acheson, stated:
“[T]he murder of Adv Lubowski is a matter of very fundamental public importance. […] His cold-blooded murder is a serious matter. The vigorous prosecution of whoever might have been responsible for this deed is clearly in the public interest and crucial to the administration and image of justice in Namibia. That image and that interest might prejudicially be impaired if there ever follows a perception in the public (legitimate or otherwise), that justice was defeated by procedural complexities, by legal stratagems, by tactical manoeuvres or by any improper collusion.” (my underlining)
It is a travesty of justice that Justice Mahomed’s warning was not heeded and that the defeating of justice that he warned against is exactly what has happened in this case.
It must be noted that all the evidence in the letter first sent to the National Prosecuting Authority, including a list of missing persons (Namibians who disappeared after being murdered in South African captivity) which I have presented as the motive for the murder of Anton Lubowski, is in fact new evidence.
Both countries have in their respective ways now complied with the legal requirements prescribed by the international community that local authorities are obligated to resolve these crimes of 1989 before the international community is legally obligated to investigate them.
The inability of the local Swapo Namibian officials and their respective South African counterparts to resolve these crimes is linked to the fact that the identified authorities handling these cases clearly have a private interest not to investigate these crimes.
The then legal fraternity in Namibia and those purportedly acting for the late Lubowski omitted to act upon evidence that police officers had indeed committed perjury during the first inquest into the killing of Lubowski when they declared they were not monitoring Lubowski during the Untag period.
The extensive evidence to support the perjury charge has never been questioned. Furthermore in order to support the findings that the involved officials colluded to defeat the ends of justice, and that it was and is a common practice, four other cases of 1992/3 have been presented to corroborate this very serious charge.
The failure of the Namibian government to act on these publicly reported State activities reflects once again very poorly on Swapo government officials’ capabilities and their reliance on these identified apartheid-era officials kept in the government since independence in 1990.
The decision by the South Africans not to investigate these crimes committed in 1989 and the inability of the Namibian authorities to act finally permitted and necessitated a complaint to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. I have also made an official complaint to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
A formal Demand and Declaration (Feb 2014) to the United Nations to cause an investigation into the crimes committed in 1989 has been submitted. In the interim the United Nations has been requested to establish the integrity of the police dockets covering the bombing of its office, the escape of the perpetrators and the Lubowski murder.