Africa-Press – Namibia. A WEEKEND search by a police officer in the desert near Arandis led to a breakthrough that resulted in the discovery of the firearm allegedly used to murder the two top executives of the Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (Nimt) three years ago.
In testimony heard by judge Christie Liebenberg in the Windhoek High Court yesterday, a veteran police officer, chief inspector Rafael Litota, recounted that his discovery of vehicle tracks and shoe prints in the desert near Arandis led to the discovery of firearm parts buried at a rocky outcrop in the area.
The firearm parts were found on 17 May 2019 – a month after the slaying of Nimt executive director Eckhart Mueller and his deputy, Heimo Hellwig, at the Nimt head office at Arandis on the morning of 15 April 2019.
Former Nimt employee Ernst Lichtenstrasser (60) is standing trial in connection with the murder of Mueller (72) and Hellwig (60).
He is denying guilt on two counts of murder and six further charges, including counts of possession of a 9mm Beretta pistol and ammunition without a licence.
In previous testimony heard during Lichtenstrasser’s trial, the judge was told that the firearm parts found about 15 kilometres from Arandis were the components of a 9mm Beretta pistol.
The court also heard that DNA samples collected from the firearm parts and a gun holster found with the parts matched a DNA sample taken from Lichtenstrasser.
In addition, a ballistics expert who examined spent bullet casings and one bullet point collected at the scene where Mueller and Hellwig were gunned down, concluded that the projectile and cartridge cases had all been fired from the firearm that was discovered in a disassembled state near Arandis.
Litota testified that he had a look at the boots Lichtenstrasser was wearing, their soles and the tyres of Lichtenstrasser’s car after first meeting him at the police station at Karibib on 17 April 2019, a day after his arrest.
He said on 27 April 2019, which was a Saturday, he decided to try to figure out the route the killer of Mueller and Hellwig would have taken as he fled from the scene.
Litota said he set off on a two-track dirt road from the Nimt campus, on which a vehicle had been seen speeding away on the morning of the double murder, and tried to think how he would have escaped from the scene if he had been the killer.
Following vehicle tracks into the desert, he came to a spot at a railway bridge, where he saw tracks which made him deduce that a vehicle had stopped there.
Litota said he also saw shoe tracks on the ground, and in his opinion those tracks were similar to the patterns of the soles of Lichtenstrasser’s boots.
He said he reasoned that if the tracks had been left by the suspected killer of Mueller and Hellwig, the murder weapon could have been hidden nearby.
Litota said he reported his suspicion to one of his superiors in the police.
The investigation of the Nimt murders continued in the meantime, and it was only on 17 May 2019 that a team of police officers was sent out to the scene where he had observed the tracks to carry out a search in the area.
Litota said tracks which were similar to those he had seen at the railway bridge – and which he said looked similar to the tracks made by Lichtenstrasser’s vehicle and his boots – were found at a rocky outcrop in the area.
It was there that firearm parts and a holster were found under a rock and buried under a shallow layer of sand.
The trial is continuing.
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