A STATE witness in the trial over the murder of the Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology’s two top executives in April 2019 has started to testify about the collection of vital evidence at the crime scene and its dispatch to a forensic laboratory for examination.
Namibian Police chief inspector Dino Skrywer told judge Christie Liebenberg in the Windhoek High Court yesterday that he collected eight spent 9 mm-calibre cartridges at the scene where the then director of the institute (Nimt), Eckhart Mueller, and his deputy, Heimo Hellwig, were gunned down at Arandis on the morning of 15 April 2019.
He also collected bullet points at the scene, Skrywer said, adding that he placed each individual piece of evidence in an envelope, which he marked and sealed.
The items he collected at the scene were kept in a police strongroom before he took them to the Namibian Police Forensic Science Institute in Windhoek to be examined, he testified.
Numerous exhibits were delivered to the forensic science institute for examination and to be compared with other exhibits, according to Skrywer’s testimony.
This included the spent cartridges and projectiles found at the crime scene, spent cartridges collected at a shooting range on a farm in the Tsumeb district and at a house at Otavi, and ammunition and firearm parts which the police allegedly discovered hidden in the desert near Arandis about a month after the slayings.
The 60-year-old Ernst Lichtenstrasser, who was employed as a lecturer at Nimt’s campus at Tsumeb when Mueller (72) and Hellwig (60) were killed, is standing trial in connection with the double murder.
Lichtenstrasser denied guilt on eight charges when his trial began in February this year.
The charges on which he is being prosecuted include two counts of murder and charges of possession of a 9 mm pistol and ammunition without a licence.
The state is alleging that Lichtenstrasser had been dissatisfied with a decision to transfer him from Tsumeb to the Nimt campus at Keetmanshoop.
It is also alleged that Lichtenstrasser had done target shooting at a friend’s farm in the Tsumeb district two days before Mueller and Hellwig were slain, and that he had driven from Otavi, where he lived, to the Arandis area on the day before the murders.Lichtenstrasser did not give a plea explanation when he denied guilt on all charges.
His defence lawyer, Albert Titus, informed the judge his client “vehemently denies” he committed the murders.
He has been held in custody since his arrest at Karibib on 16 April 2019.
Deputy prosecutor general Antonia Verhoef is representing the state in the trial.
