Source: The Namibian
A 28 year-old woman awaiting trial on charges of arson, theft, crimen injuria and violence claims that she was raped in a holding cell at the Keetmanshoop police station.

The woman is accused of stealing gardening tools, setting alight a room in which she was sleeping at her sister's house, and vulgar and violent behaviour towards her neighbours.

Two male inmates allegedly raped the woman on two separate occasions. Confirming the rape allegations, Deputy Commissioner Rudolf Isaak said the woman reported the alleged rapes after the second incident last Tuesday.

The first rape was allegedly committed on August 31.

Isaak said a police investigation launched immediately after the allegations were made found that the woman had consensual sexual intercourse with the inmates.

"In an affidavit taken from her, the woman admitted that she had consensual sexual intercourse through the holding cell's burglar bars with the inmates," said Isaak.

The implicated inmates denied that they had sexual intercourse with the woman, according to Isaak.

Isaak added that the woman had confessed to fabricating rape claims to draw police attention to her protest about being locked up alone in a holding cell despite the fact that she suffers from epilepsy.

Isaak said it was suspected that the inmates gained access to the woman's cell by unlocking the padlock on a door leading from the woman's cell to a courtyard.

The accused have access to the courtyard because of the duties as 'cooking boys' preparing food for the inmates.

Asked how the inmates had unlocked the padlocks, Isaak remarked: "They have a way how they unlock locked padlocks."

Isaak said the police had opened a case docket relating to the rape allegations, but the deputy State prosecutor had declined to prosecute on the basis of the woman' affidavit in which she had admitted that she had consensual sex with the inmates. 

• Namibia