Criminal spree gets man 62 years in jail

FORMER construction company employee Pinias Kashawa, who has been found guilty on a string of housebreaking, robbery, rape and attempted murder charges, was sentenced to an effective prison term of 62 years and four months yesterday.

Kashawa (43) has already been in jail for the past six years and almost two months after he was arrested close to the scene of a flurry of burglaries and other crimes in Okury-angava in Windhoek in April 2010. With his sentencing in the Windhoek High Court yesterday, Judge Alfred Siboleka told Kashawa that the court had to send out a strong message to would−be offenders that burglaries into people’s homes and robberies accompanying such crimes would not be tolerated. The judge noted that although Kashawa had been caught red−handed when a police officer shot him in the leg during the early morning hours of 17 April 2010, he still insisted after he was found guilty that he had done nothing wrong.