Two Lankans face 1516 charges in Namibia

A Sri Lankan national, one of the men facing a massive 1516 criminal charges over the alleged cloning of bank cards in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, during 2007 launched a renewed bail application yesterday.

 

With his trial scheduled to continue in the High Court in Windhoek from December 1, Sri Lankan Anthony Suresh Kumar Stanis (34) is now asking for bail.

 

Stanis has been kept in custody since his arrest on September 26 2007.

 

Stanis and five co-accused are charged with 1516 counts, which include 1032 charges of fraud, alternatively theft, and 474 charges of forgery.

 

The six charged men are alleged to have been part of a fraud ring that cloned bank cards and then used the cards at automated teller machines throughout Namibia to withdraw large amounts of cash – alleged to total some N$1,467 million – from the accounts of customers of British bank Barclays PLC.

 

Stanis and four of the other suspects pleaded not guilty to all of the charges when their trial started before Judge Alfred Siboleka on March 2 this year.

 

One of the accused men has been missing from the dock since February last year, though.

 

Amirthalingam Pugalnanthy, who is also a Sri Lankan citizen, would have been the first accused in the trial. He was released from custody after being granted bail in an amount of N$200 000 in December 2008, but is suspected to have fled from Namibia after he last reported to the Katutura Police Station on February 20 last year.

 

Pugalnanthy’s bail money was forfeited to the State after he absconded.

 

Stanis was refused bail when he first applied to be released from custody while the case was still pending in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court.

 

Expanding on his denial of guilt, he said: “I didn’t fraud anybody. Even a single penny I didn’t fraud.”

 

Stanis further claimed he never knew any of his co-accused before his arrest.

 

He said he first visited Namibia on holiday in May 2007, after a friend of his had told him that it was “a nice country” with a good nightlife.

 

This friend also put him into email contact with one of his co-accused, Travoltha Mekaundapi Tjiuiju, who wrote an invitation letter which he then used to support his application for a visa to visit Namibia, Stanis said. He however never met Tjiuiju before his arrest either, he claimed.

 

Having returned to Sri Lanka when his first visa expired, he returned to Namibia on a second visit in mid-August 2007, Stanis said. He said by then he had started a relationship with a Namibian woman, at whose house he will be staying if he is released on bail, the Namibian reported today.