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“I blacked out.

“I did not know what was going on.

“The only thing I remember is that I found myself in the bush.”

These statements were part of the testimony that Windhoek resident Inock Nalisa, who is accused of murdering his wife in the city two years ago, gave in his trial in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.

Nalisa (32) told judge Christie Liebenberg he had no recollection of a deadly attack on his wife at their home in Windhoek’s Okahandja Park area during the evening of 31 October 2020.

The state is alleging that Nalisa murdered his wife, Petrah Munikonzo (30), by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife and inflicting blows to her head with a hammer. It is also alleged that after he had killed his wife, Nalisa hid or disposed of the knife with which she had been stabbed.

Nalisa denied guilt on charges of murder, read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, and defeating or obstructing the course of justice when his trial began on Tuesday last week.

A cousin of Munikonzo, who lived next to her and Nalisa, told the court last week that Munikonzo and Nalisa had been involved in a loud quarrel on the evening of the incident.

After Munikonzo had screamed for help during the quarrel, her cousin found her lying dead on the floor of the couple’s shack. Munikonzo was covered with a duvet when she was found.

A bloodied hammer was also found lying on a bed in the shack.

Nalisa was no longer at the scene after Munikonzo had been found dead.

A medical doctor who carried out an autopsy on Munikonzo’s body, Dr Simasiku Kabanje, testified on Thursday that he recorded 22 stab wounds on her back and mainly the left side of her chest, and also 15 lacerations, caused by blows with a blunt object, on her head.

Munikonzo had suffered a skull fracture as well, Kabanje said.

Testifying in his own defence, Nalisa said Munikonzo was upset with him because he had not gone to work on the day of the incident.

He said when he arrived home in the evening, Munikonzo was smoking cannabis and drinking beer in their kitchen.

Nalisa said after he had gone to their bedroom, she followed him and then slapped him in the face and hit him with a broomstick on his shoulder.

He said Munikonzo ran back to the kitchen, where she grabbed a knife.

“She was provoking me to fight with her, but I told her she must leave me alone,” he related.

Munikonzo, he said, responded by remarking: “Today is the day one of us will be at the mortuary or prison.”

After Munikonzo’s cousin had been at their shack in connection with the quarrel she was hearing, Munikonzo again approached him with a knife, Nalisa said.

He said he tried to wrestle the knife from her, and it dropped to the floor.

Munikonzo then grabbed his private parts and twisted it – and at that point he blacked out, Nalisa said.

He continued that the next thing he knew was that he was in the bush, where he spent two nights before going to the Wanaheda Police Station to report that he had been in an argument with his wife.

Nalisa denied that he told an officer on duty at the police station that he had stabbed his wife.

The trial is scheduled to continue on 23 January, when the judge is due to hear closing oral arguments from state advocate Erick Moyo and defence lawyer Tjingairi Kaurivi.

Nalisa is being held in custody.