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Lichtenstrasser trial: Crime scene investigators testify

Herma Prinsloo
STAFF REPORTER

In the Lichtenstrasser murder trial involving the two murdered NIMT directors Eckhart Mueller and his deputy Heimo Hellwig, prosecutor Antonia Verhoef last Wednesday called crime scene investigator Dino Skrywer to the witness stand.

Skrywer was the main investigator at the crime scene on the property of the Institute of Mining and Technology (NIMT) near Arandis on 15 April 2019.

He testified that he took photographs of the scene and was able to collect and recover various pieces of evidence.

Among this evidence, eight cartridge casings and four bullets were found, which he carefully stored and sealed in different envelopes.

He also took various pieces of evidence from other police officers to keep and later hand over to the Namibian Institute of Forensic Science (NIFS) in Windhoek.

Evidence collection

Other evidence collected by the police included cartridge casings from a shooting range near Tsumeb, where Lichtenstrasser had undertaken shooting practice, and cartridge casings from his house in Otavi.

He also received the clothes that Lichtenstrasser was supposed to have worn on the day of the murder from the police officer Engelhardt Garoëb.

They were a T-shirt, a denim jacket and trousers, which Skrywer also secured in evidence envelopes.

Under cross-examination by the defence, Skrywer admitted that he had not seen any blood on the garments when he photographed them. The clothing was then handed to NIFS to test for gunpowder residue.

Other evidence Skrywer had handed in to the Police Forensic Institute included 18 rounds of live ammunition, a disassembled pistol with two magazines and a brown gun holster.

To this, crime scene photographer Fernanda Ganda testified on Monday. Ganda was sent to the site in the desert outside Arandis on 17 May 2019, where she documented the excavation and recovery photographically.

Some of the investigators from Nampol were already on site when Ganda was called by an investigator in Walvis Bay.

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-15

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