OSHAKATI: A 28-year-old man who killed his girlfriend at the Uuthilindindi village in the Oshakati district in 2010 was sentenced to 35 years in prison here on Friday.

Paulus Tomas was convicted of the murder on 30 July, during which Judge Christie Liebenberg of the High Court at Oshakati also read the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act No.4 of 2003.

Tomas attacked his girlfriend, identified as Johanna Lazarus (age unknown), with a hoe in a mahangu field at that village on 29 November 2010.

“The deceased was brutally attacked with a hoe and struck on the head several times, and with such force that the deceased succumbed to head injuries at the scene,” Liebenberg noted while passing the sentence.

The post-mortem report presented to the court revealed that the deceased died of several skull fractures.

Liebenberg said a 35 years’ imprisonment term was appropriate on the grounds that during the trial, Tomas expressed no remorse for what he had done.

He described the incident as “a senseless killing, when a much weaker and defenceless person became a victim of the one who was supposed to protect and love her”.

The accused had a romantic relationship with the deceased since 2008, and a daughter was born to them during that period.

The court heard that after the death of the deceased, the child stayed with her maternal grandmother who, in the interim, also passed away.

Liebenberg told Tomas that the murder has deprived the child of motherly love and care.

The particular circumstances under which the offence was committed remain unknown, as Tomas elected to remain silent about it.