South African couple attacked and robbed while on Zoom call
An elderly South African couple who moved to Swakopmund in Namibia for a quieter life was attacked in their home, and participants of a Zoom video call witnessed the bloody assault.
Lizette Rossouw (65) was taking part in an online exercise class at around 08:00 on a Tuesday morning when her partner Riaan Booysen (67) was confronted by three men outside their house in the neighbourhood of Ocean View.
Namibian news website Erongo reported that the men attacked Booysen with their fists and a panga while they held Rossouw down and demanded money and keys to the safe.
One of the attackers even broke the leg off of a coffee table and hit Booysen in the face with it. Rossouw’s online training partners reportedly looked on in shock as Booysen fell to the ground, bloodied, while he tried to ward off panga blows.
Quoting Booysen’s daughter, Elzanne Wylie, Rapport said he suffered seven blows from the panga and managed to catch the blade with his hands and bend it.
Witnesses on the Zoom call contacted the neighbourhood watch and police, who responded promptly.
The criminals fled with three cellphones, a tablet PC, a watch, and R500 cash, but members of the neighbourhood watch and police gave chase and caught them. All three suspects were arrested following the attack.
The stolen items were recovered, and one of the suspects injured his foot when he jumped over the fence. Andreas Kaushi (36), Ivula Stephanus (25) and Dorien Iyambo (21) reportedly appeared in the magistrate’s court on charges of housebreaking and robbery with aggravating circumstances. All three were denied bail.
Iyambo admitted guilt and applied for legal aid. Kaushi en Stephanus denied guilt and told the magistrate they would represent themselves. Booysen was hospitalised with serious wounds to his right eye and hands.
His daughter said that while the wounds to his head and hands are healing, they had to go to Windhoek for a specialist to evaluate his eye, and Booysen underwent surgery on Thursday.
A similar incident happened in South Africa during June when Sterna Lewis (37), her sons, and her boyfriend Mario Engelbrecht were robbed in their home in Amberfield, Centurion. Lewis was playing Call of Duty: Warzone and streaming to Amazon’s Twitch platform.
A friend who lived in the same estate realised something was amiss after Engelbrecht had stopped talking on TeamSpeak without saying goodbye.
After trying to call both Lewis and Engelbrecht’s phones, which the robbers had switched off, he drove to the house. Upon hearing the unfamiliar voices of the robbers in the garage, he alerted the estate’s security.
The estate’s security guards arrived at the house, and the robbers fled the scene, leaving most of the items they had planned to steal behind.
In other news – Nelli Tembe’s phone with crucial evidence deleted – B!tchy messages about DJ Zinhle disappear
This comes after it has emerged that her phone records have been wiped clean hence leaving the police with nowhere to start as all crucial evidence has been deleted.
The police are set to apply for Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure act to obtain Tembe’s records from her Apple phone, which includes text messages and e-mails she received and sent to her close contact. Learn more
Source: mybroadband
