45 years in prison for rape of baby

 

THE Combating of Rape Act of 2000 struck with vengeance in the High Court in Windhoek on Thursday last week, leaving a man convicted of raping a 17-month-old baby at Otjiwarongo three years ago with a 45-year prison term.

Gerhardt Geiseb (40) was sentenced to an effective 47 years’ imprisonment, after he also received a two-year jail term on a charge of committing an indecent act with a girl under the age of 16. Acting Judge A.K. Simpson found Geiseb guilty on that charge and a count of rape on Monday last week.
Both charges relate to events which took place at Otjiwarongo on August 30 2008.
On the morning of that day, a baby girl aged one year and five months was found in a seriously injured condition on a bed in the house where her mother had left her in the care of someone else. The mother had gone off on a drinking spree with some friends.
The baby’s legs were covered in blood and she had serious injuries to her private parts. This prompted suspicions that she had been raped.
Geiseb denied he was guilty on either of the charges. Based on the testimony of a girl, who was 11 years old at the time of the incidents and who told the court that Geiseb had touched her on her breasts and had made sexual gestures towards her while he was lying on a bed with the baby, he was convicted on the charge of committing an indecent act with a girl under the age of 16.
The conviction on the rape charge was based on circumstantial evidence. This mainly consisted of testimony from four witnesses who said they had seen Geiseb on the day in question at the house where the suspected rape took place, and the testimony of three witnesses who said they had seen Geiseb on the bed with the baby.
According to the witnesses’ testimony, Geiseb was the last person seen with the baby before she was found in such an injured state.
After Geiseb was convicted Acting Judge Simpson was informed that he has also been found guilty of rape previously. He was convicted of housebreaking and rape in the High Court in February 1993, and was sentenced to an effective seven-year prison term at the end of that trial.
The Combating of Rape Act stipulates that anyone convicted of rape for a second or subsequent time should be sentenced to not less than 45 years’ imprisonment, unless substantial and compelling circumstances warranting a lesser sentence are found to be present.
Acting Judge Simpson did not find such substantial and compelling circumstances to be present in Geiseb’s case.
“The offence that was committed towards this small baby is shockingly brutal and cruel,” he remarked.
After he had been found guilty, Geiseb’s defence lawyer, Amupanda Kamanja, told the court that Geiseb remains adamant that he is not guilty of the crimes.
Geiseb showed no remorse during the trial and before his sentencing, Acting Judge Simpson said in this regard on Thursday. The court has a duty to protect the public against people who commit crimes like Geiseb has, he said.
Geiseb, who is unmarried and the father of two children, has been in custody, awaiting his trial and its completion, for the past three years.
State advocate Karin Esterhuizen conducted the prosecution.