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Monday, April 29, 2002 - Web posted at 8:51:30 pm GMT

THE VICTOR Marathon murder trial inches forward

THE extraordinarily drawn-out murder trial of former Walvis Bay hotel owner Muller van As is set to near its end with the presentation of arguments on judgement on August 1.

By then it will be almost 11 years since the 1991 death of fisherman John Thomas Muller (40), over whose demise Van As has been prosecuted for the past six years.

Van As (54), not legally represented, and Deputy Prosecutor General Danie Small on Thursday agreed that they would present final submissions on a verdict to Acting Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe on August 1 and 2.

The dates were fixed after Van As told Acting Judge Mtambanengwe in the High Court in Windhoek that he was closing his defence, without calling the expert witnesses he had earlier had in mind.

The hearing of the arguments is set to take place close to 10 years and 11 months after the event. Since June 1997, it has had Van As stuck in a drawn-out, often postponed High Court trial, which has featured more than the usual share of twists and uncommon testimony.

Van As, the former owner of the Mermaid Hotel at Walvis Bay, is charged with the alleged murder of Muller, one of the hotel's patrons, on September 6 1991.

The prosecution charges that Muller died after Van As assaulted him in the public bar while the hotelier was breaking up a fight. It is further alleged that Muller's body was kept in a walk-in fridge in the hotel's kitchen, where he was allegedly seen by hotel staff the next morning.

His body was then dumped in the sea, and was found floating in the Walvis Bay harbour on September 18 1991.

Muller's death was at first presumed to have been a drowning.

However, a murder investigation was started in early 1996, after claims surfaced that Van As allegedly assaulted him and he had been found inside the hotel fridge.

During the trial, a State witness embroidered on this, claiming that since Muller's death the hotel had become haunted by spooky, inexplicable occurrences around the anniversary of his death every year.

Small closed the case for the prosecution in February last year.
Only afterwards, as Van As presented his defence case, did it emerge that he was relying on an alibi - that he was in Cape Town on business on the day of the alleged bar fight, and that he had a business associate's diary entries for the day of September 6 1991 to back up his alibi.

Van As's decision not to present further evidence came after forensic expert Dr Paul Ludik, Director of the National Forensic Science Institute of Namibia, in essence told the court early last month that tests he had been asked to do on the supposedly alibi-supporting diary could not show that the diary entries backing Van As's alibi had been falsified or entered into the diary only after September 6 1991. Van As remains free on bail.

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