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SIX Icelandic-owned companies caught up in the Fishrot fishing quotas fraud and corruption scandal have suffered another loss against the prosecutor general (PG), in a Prevention of Organised Crime Act case in the Windhoek High Court.

In a ruling delivered on Thursday, judge Orben Sibeya dismissed an application in which the six companies asked to be allowed to appeal against an earlier ruling that Sibeya delivered near the end of March this year.

In his latest ruling, Sibeya also ordered that the companies should pay the prosecutor general’s legal costs in connection with their application.

The six companies are Esja Holding, Mermaria Seafood Namibia, Saga Seafood, Heinaste Investment Namibia, Saga Investment and Esja Investment. The companies are part of the Icelandic fishing company group Samherji, which is alleged to have been involved in large-scale fraud and corruption in the use of Namibian fishing quotas.

The six companies previously asked Sibeya to make an order calling for oral evidence to be given about some aspects of a case, in which prosecutor general Martha Imalwa in November 2020 obtained an interim property restraint order over assets connected to the Fishrot case.

The companies also wanted the judge to permit them to cross-examine Imalwa about her decision to criminally charge three Icelandic directors of the companies – Adalsteinn Helgason, Egill Helgi Árnason and Ingvar Júlíusson – and have them extradited to Namibia, and to cross-examine former Samherji manager Jóhannes Stefánsson, who as whistleblower revealed the Fishrot case, in an effort to establish if he would indeed be testifying in the pending High Court trial about the case.

Sibeya dismissed the companies’ application, and directed them to pay the prosecutor general’s legal costs in the matter near the end of March. In the ruling he delivered on Thursday, the judge concluded that since his previous ruling was not a final one in the matter and could be revisited in future, it did not meet the requirements for the companies to be allowed to appeal against it.

Sibeya also said if Imalwa failed to have the three Icelandic directors extradited to Namibia and as a result failed to prosecute them, they would not be convicted and no property confiscation order would be given against the companies they represent. That may make the companies’ call to cross-examine Imalwa unnecessary, he added.

Senior counsel Raymond Heathcote argued the application for leave to appeal on behalf of the companies. The prosecutor general’s case was argued by senior counsel Wim Trengove.