BY WERNER MENGES
FORMER Ministry of Environment and Tourism official Sackey Namugongo became the most high-profile victim of the Anti-Corruption Act to date on Friday, when he was convicted in the Windhoek Regional Court on 19 counts of corruption.
At the age of 58, Namugongo should be sent to prison for ten years, Deputy Prosecutor General Orben Sibeya suggested to Magistrate Sarel Jacobs after the magistrate had convicted Namugongo on almost half of the 40 charges he faced.
Defence counsel Titus Mbaeva suggested Namugongo should be sentenced to pay a fine.
As for Namugongo himself, he continued to insist he was an innocent man when he got his turn to testify in mitigation of sentence. “I did not receive money from them,” he said, referring to the string of witnesses who told the court they paid tens of thousands of dollars to him for what they thought would be gambling house licences that would be issued to them. “I did not commit these crimes,” Namugongo added.
Earlier in his testimony he told the court he did not have words to describe the effect the case in which he has been facing charges since his arrest in mid-September 2006 has been having on him. “I am rejected, I am condemned, and I live in isolation,” he told the court.
Namugongo also asked the court to sentence him to pay a fine, rather than send him straight to prison. Link
