Nimt murder accused claims confession was ‘conditioned’

Former Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (Nimt) employee Ernst Lichtenstrasser says police officers ‘‘conditioned’’ him to make a confession about the murder of the institute’s two top executives in April 2019.

Lichtenstrasser made this claim while testifying in his own defence during his trial in the Windhoek High Court last week.

He continued to give testimony under cross-examination from deputy prosecutor general Antonia Verhoef on Thursday and Friday, when his trial continued after a three-month break in proceedings.

Lichtenstrasser (61) is being prosecuted on eight charges, including two counts of murder, in connection with the killing of Nimt executive director Eckhart Mueller (72) and his deputy, Heimo Hellwig (60), on 15 April 2019.

Mueller and Hellwig were gunned down early on a Monday morning on their arrival at the Nimt head office at Arandis in the Erongo region. There were no known eyewitnesses to the shooting.

Lichtenstrasser was arrested at a service station at Karibib during the evening of 16 April 2019. He was initially charged only with the unlawful possession of ammunition, but in May 2019 was charged in connection with the murders as well.

Police officers who repeatedly interrogated him after his arrest were aggressive and intimidated him, Lichtenstrasser told judge Christie Liebenberg in his testimony last week.

He also said that through lengthy interrogation sessions, police officers “conditioned me what to say in a confession later”.

The information in the oral confession that he made to police officers at Walvis Bay on 15 May 2019 was suggested to him by officers, he said: “I was conditioned what to say.”

Lichtenstrasser’s confession included a part in which he described his reaction as he drove away from the scene where he said he had shot Mueller and Hellwig. He recounted that “then it kicked in, s#*t, what the hell have you done, […] what on earth have you done”.

When Verhoef questioned him about that part of his account on 15 May 2019, he said he was not referring to the double killing at Arandis, but to his realisation at that stage that he was making a false confession “and destroying myself”.

Lichtenstrasser said he made the confession because he was in an emotional state and the police officers interrogating him had threatened to arrest his wife as a suspect in connection with the double murder. Before concluding his testimony on Friday, he added that he was under undue influence from the police and was not thinking coherently when he gave the account in which he admitted that he killed Mueller and Hellwig.

“And above all, it is a false confession,” he said.

He told the court he was in the desert between Usakos and Arandis, where he meditated, for nearly two days from the evening of 14 April 2019. According to Lichtenstrasser, he first learned that Mueller and Hellwig had been killed when he heard a radio news report about it early in the afternoon of 16 April 2019.

“I thought it was a robbery or whatever. Didn’t make much of it,” he described his reaction to the news of their death at that stage.
The trial is scheduled to continue from 5 June.

Lichtenstrasser, who is being represented by legal aid lawyer Albert Titus, is being held in custody.