Namibia: Bail Refused in Nimt Double-Murder Case
A THIRD bail application by double-murder accused Ernst Lichtenstrasser, who is charged over the killing of two top executives at the Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (Nimt) at Arandis in April 2019, has ended in failure.
With his third attempt to be granted bail, Lichtenstrasser has not displaced the basis on which he was initially refused bail in the Swakopmund Magistrate’s Court in July 2019, judge Claudia Claasen concluded in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
Claasen noted that the magistrate who refused Lich-tenstrasser’s first application to be granted bail made a finding that the prosecution had evidence on which he could be convicted. That finding about the strength of the state’s case has not been displaced during his latest request for bail, the judge said.
Other findings by the magistrate – such as that there was a risk that Lichtenstrasser would flee or interfere with witnesses if released, and that it was not in the public interest for him to be granted bail – also remain valid, Claasen added.
Lichtenstrasser (60) has been held in custody since his arrest on 16 April 2019.
He is accused of murdering Nimt executive director Eckhart Mueller (72) and his deputy, Heimo Hellwig (60), by gunning them down at the institute’s head office at Arandis in the Erongo region on the morning of 15 April 2019.
The state is alleging that Lichtenstrasser had been involved in a dispute with Mueller and Hellwig about a decision to transfer him from the Nimt campus at Tsumeb, where he was employed, to Keetmanshoop.
According to the state’s allegations against him, Lichtenstrasser drove from Otavi, where he lives, to the Arandis area on the day before the double slaying. He is accused of having waited for Mueller and Hellwig to arrive at the Nimt premises at Arandis and shooting each of them multiple times with an unlicensed 9mm pistol before he fled the scene.
Lichtenstrasser is denying guilt on all of the eight charges he is facing.
His trial started before judge Christie Liebenberg in the Windhoek High Court in February last year, and is scheduled to continue from 14 March.
Fourteen state witnesses have testified during the trial so far.
Deputy prosecutor general Antonia Verhoef, who is representing the state, indicated during the bail hearing two weeks ago that about 30 more prosecution witnesses are expected to testify during the trial.
After his first bid to be granted bail did not succeed in July 2019, Lichtenstrasser applied for bail again in March 2020. That application, too, was refused in the Swakopmund Magistrate’s Court, in April 2020.
Legal aid lawyer Albert Titus is representing Lichtenstrasser.
By Namibian.
