Thomas Florin can only apply for parole in 2024

The Judiciary of Namibia pointed out this week that Thomas Adolf Florin would not be eligible to apply for parole at the National Release Board within the next 90 days as the media reported this week, including an article in this regard that appeared in the edition of namib times of Tuesday 23 August 2016.

When Florin was convicted on 22 December 1999, an Independent Namibia’s first Prisons Act (1998) was still in force which would have allowed him to apply for parole.
However, on 1 January 2014 the new Prisons Act for Namibia came into force which determines that a person convicted on a life sentence must serve a prison sentence of a minimum of 25 years before eligible for parole. In the case of Florin this would mean he would only be eligible to apply for parole by December 2024, a judicial officer pointed out this week.
The namib times as a Namibian entity with a deep respect for Namibia’s legal system and the integrity of the Courts of this country hereby apologises unconditionally for this oversight and the subsequent incorrect information we published in the public domain as a result.
∙Florin, now in the latter half of his forties, was found guilty on 3 December 1999 of the murder of his wife, Monika Florin, in the couple’s home. Florin never admitted to the killing, but was convicted on 22 December of the same year on evidence presented by the State.
Monika Florin was killed by a single blow to the head by a blunt object [a hammer] whereafter Thomas Florin first mutilated her mortal remains and cooked it before hiding some of the grisly evidence in containers in the house’s ceiling. Florin was found guilty of murder, mutilation of a dead human body and obstructing the course of justice.
He was sentenced to serve a minimum of fifteen years and was transferred to the Windhoek Central Prison to serve the sentence. This sentence includes a six month sentence for wildlife products which was found to be illegally in his possession when the Florin couple’s freight containers, in which their household was packed for an imminent move to Germany, was opened by the police in Walvis Bay. The police had a suspicion that Thomas Florin’s explanation that his wife absconded, was not true and arrested him for the illegal possession of the wildlife products found in the containers. Florin was still in custody when his wife’s remains were discovered.