A Namibian Supreme Court judge arrested on charges of kidnapping two young girls from a township bus stop and sexually assaulting them was granted bail on Wednesday.
Magistrate Sarel Jacobs posted bail of N$10 000 (R9 600) for Judge Tio Peek and ordered him to hand in his passport after he was arrested in Windhoek on Monday.
Peek (57) was also ordered not to leave the Windhoek district without police permission, not to interfere with the investigation and not to contact the girls, aged nine and 10, or their families.
”You may not come closer than 1km of the residences of the two complainants,” the magistrate told a sombre-looking Teek in the packed court room.
The case was postponed to next month.
The state-owned Namibian Broadcasting Corporation said the mother of one of the girls told the police they were allegedly kidnapped from a bus stop at Katutura township, north-west of Windhoek.
Government newspaper New Era reported the girls were allegedly taken to a small farm about 35km north of the capital, where they were sexually assaulted, before being dropped off at the township the next day.
Teek was appointed in 1999 the first black judge president of the High Court, Namibia’s second highest tribunal after the Supreme Court, a post he held until June 2003.
He was then promoted to judge of appeal to the Supreme Court. — Sapa-AFP