KEETMANSHOOP: The Keetmanshoop Regional Court today sentenced a 37-year-old man to 18 years behind bars for murdering a younger man with a knife over a cigarette.

Two years of the sentence were suspended, and Joel Bethuel Dausab, who conducted his own defence, will have to serve an effective 16 years.

The court heard that Dausab, a resident of Keetmanshoop, stabbed the 21-year-old Manfred Klippert in the neck several times on the night of 28 April 2008 in a fight over a cigarette which Dausab had asked for from the deceased and his three friends.

The incident happened at the Sport Bar in Keetmanshoop’s Tseiblaagte, where Dausab allegedly started a fight after Klippert refused to share the cigarette.

The deceased bled to death on the spot.

Delivering the verdict, Magistrate Sunsley Zisengwe said Dausab’s actions were unprovoked, saying he killed Klippert for his own cigarette, thus the court decided to give him a sentence to protect the interest of society, amongst other reasons.