/ 21 January 2008

NPA: No decision yet on probe into Lubowski murder

The decision to re-open an investigation into the Anton Lubowski murder has not yet been taken, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Monday. Lubowski, a Stellenbosch University-educated lawyer, a Namibian anti-apartheid activist and a prominent South West Africa People's Organisation member, was assassinated 18 years ago.

The decision to re-open an investigation into the Anton Lubowski murder has not yet been taken, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Monday.

Lubowski, a Stellenbosch University-educated lawyer, a Namibian anti-apartheid activist and a prominent South West Africa People’s Organisation member, was assassinated 18 years ago.

NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said the media had reported inaccurately last week that a special task team, set up by the NPA to oversee prosecutions and investigations dealt with by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, would now consider the case.

”The decision in the matter is yet to be taken. The task team, headed by the NPA [and] involving other role players, will soon hold a meeting,” said Tlali.

He said the Lubowski family was aware of the state of affairs.

”No member of the NPA has spoken to the media regarding the decision of the NPA in this regard,” he said.

Once the meeting was held, Tlali said the NPA could provide further details.

Lubowski was shot eight times outside his Windhoek home in 1989. Seven of the bullets came from an AK-47.

Despite the findings of a 1994 inquest by Judge Harold Levy of prima facie evidence that the murder was ordered by the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) and carried out by Irish national Donald Acheson, no one was prosecuted.

The South African Press Association reported in 1999 that CCB members Ferdi Barnard, Leon André Maree, Daniël Ferdinand du Toit (Staal Burger), Wouter Jacobus Basson, Johan Niemoller, Carl Castelling (Calla) Botha, Pieter Johan (Joe) Verster and Abram (Slang) van Zyl were also named as accomplices to the murder.

Gabriele Lubowski, Anton’s former wife, said last Thursday that the family had spent almost two decades trying to bring the men implicated in Lubowski’s murder to trial. — Sapa