Featherweight Boxer and Namibia’s 2007 Sportsman of the Year, Simon ‘Balooka’ Johannes, has become the second Namibian boxer in the last three weeks sought by police after he assaulted a former girlfriend with a beer bottle last week Saturday in Okuryungava, where the Namibian boxer owns a Bar.
The woman known as Aune, now sporting a huge patch on her left cheek covering a long and deep wound where she was cut, registered a case of assault against Johannes with the Wanaheda police on Monday after he reportedly hit her in the face with the beer bottle, while she was complaining about the bar lady wearing a jersey that belongs to the boxer.
Johannes reportedly walked up to his partner, who was then sitting in another corner of the bar with a friend, and poured his glass of drink in her face before following up by smashing the bottle in her face. Judging from photographs taken right after the incident and while the victim was at hospital, Aune is severely scarred and lost a large amount of blood.
The victim, in her early thirties, claims that she has been beaten up by Johannes on three other occasions, although this is the first time that she reported the matter to the authorities. “He badly assaulted me with his fists and kicks to the body and head last year after I found an ex-girlfriend of his sitting on his lap,” says Aune.
Johannes, who had his dream of competing at the 2012 Olympics shattered after missing his qualifying bout in Morocco last month following a miscalculation of the time by the Namibian boxing team at the African Boxing qualifiers, reportedly also assaulted his aunt (Known to Informanté) last Thursday, two days before assaulting his girlfriend. Though details remain sketchy, as the relative decided against telling her side of the story, Johannes was reportedly at a graduation celebration at his aunt’s house when the purported assault took place.
The featherweight confirmed that he indeed poured alcohol in his partner’s face, but denies that he hit her with the beer bottle, saying that Aune was cut by a splintered piece of glass that flew from the beer bottle that he threw and broke next to the victim.
“She is an invidious individual who has on numerous occasions caused disturbances at my bar. The bar lady is my employee and if she is cold I have the right to give her something warm and that does not mean we sleep together.”
Shortly after speaking to Informanté, the featherweight boxer is reported to have threatened Aune with further violence. The police had not yet apprehended the suspect by the time of going to press.