A man appeared in court on Tuesday, charged with the murder of a security supervisor at Namdia, Namibia's state-run diamond marketing company, and the theft of rough stones reckoned to be worth at least $15m (N$280).

A second defendant, in hospital at the time, was charged at Windhoek Magistrates' Court with robbery.

There is every indication that the crime, which took place two days before Namdia's largest ever rough diamond sale (planned for 20 January), was an "inside job".

Police have confirmed that one of the suspects, Joel Angula, is a Namdia security officer, who was on duty at the time of the raid.

Another suspect - his cousin Max Endjala - allegedly used an outdated access card that Angula provided to enter the building.

Endjala died from what police say was a self-inflicted gunshot wound during the incident.

The most shocking aspect of the heist is unquestionably the brutality of the perpetrators.

They bound and threatened employees. And they took a man's life.

Francis "Gosh" Eiseb, aged 57, was called in to Namdia's HQ in Windhoek on Saturday afternoon (18 January).

He was shot in the head as he confronted raiders. His body was in a storeroom with his hands and legs tied, and his face covered with a shopping bag.

The company described him as a "fallen hero" who had acted bravely and selflessly.

Some of the stolen diamonds have since been recovered, according to police. But the details about exactly what happened remain unclear.

High-value diamond heists are, generally speaking, characterized by their sophistication, audacity and meticulous planning. But not by fatalities.

The gang behind the world's biggest gem heist - $129m of diamond artifacts from The Green Vault museum, in Dresden, Germany in 2019 - cut the electricity supply, and smashed display cabinets. But nobody was hurt.
 
Thieves who bypassed sophisticated security systems to steal $100m of diamonds from the Antwerp World Diamond Center in 2003 did so at a weekend, when nobody was there. No injuries.

Nobody was hurt when thieves disguised as police officers stole $50m of diamonds from a plane at Brussels Airport in 2013.

Nobody was hurt in the Tokyo diamond heist of 2005 when $20m of diamonds were stolen from a luxury jewelry store.

And nobody was hurt in the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Burglary of 2015 when the "Geriatric Gang" of elderly criminals stole $18m of diamonds and other valuables.

But the Namdia diamond heist was marred by a brutal killing of a husband, father and loyal employee.

It was also marred by what appears, according to widespread press reports, to have been a profound betrayal at the core of the company's critical security operations, indicative of a complex web of corruption and opportunism.
 
But there are even wider ramifications. There are reports that Namdia had been warned that it could be a target and that it failed to upgrade security.

The catastrophic breach is highly damaging for the company's reputation, at a time when it can ill afford it.

Last year Namibia's opposition leader McHenry Venaani said there should be immediate and rigorous scrutiny into revenue losses of $12.4m (N$230m) at the company.

Now, in the wake of the raid, he has called for the suspension of the entire Namdia board of directors and executives, and hinted at the involvement of high-level figures in the crime.

"One can read between the lines that more important senior figures are involved in this thing," he said, according to a report in The Namibian newspaper.

"This thing is a whole planned cartel. It was properly planned, and people in high positions are involved in this thing."