‘Sleep with one eye open’ … threat made before double murder

This was recounted by Mueller's suc- cessor as head of Nimt, Ralph Bussel, in testimony heard by judge Christie Liebenberg in the Windhoek High Court yesterday. Bussel testified that Mueller visited the Nimt Tsumeb campus in January 2019 to have a personal discussion with one of the institute's employees, Ernst Lichtenstrasser, in connection with the closure of the department of Nimt in which Lichtenstrasser was working at Tsumeb. Due to financial difficulties, Nimt was retrenching staff members at that stage, and Lichtenstrasser faced the prospect of either resigning, having to accept a trans- fer to another campus of the institute at either Arandis or Keetmanshoop, or being retrenched, Bussel said. He told the judge that after Mueller returned from his visit to Tsumeb, he reported that Lichtenstrasser had threat- ened him, telling him to “sleep with one eye open”. “It was very clear that the late Eckhart Mueller was worried,” Bussel said. “He was not at ease with the threats.” Bussel said he saw a change in Muel- ler's behaviour after that, with Mueller no longer transparent about his whereabouts Ernst Lichtenstrasser and daily schedule as he had been before. On 15 April 2019 – when Mueller (72) and his deputy at Nimt, Heimo Hellwig (60), were gunned down in front of the institute's head office at Arandis in the Erongo region – he informed a police of- ficer at the murder scene about the threat which Mueller had said Lichtenstrasser had made, Bussel also told the judge. Lichtenstrasser (60) is denying guilt on two counts of murder and six other charges in connection with the killing of Mueller and Hellwig.
His defence lawyer, Albert Titus, told Bussel yesterday that while Lichten- strasser agrees that he and Mueller met at Tsumeb in January 2019, he strongly disputes that he had warned Mueller to “sleep with one eye open”. Titus said according to Lichtenstrasser, an unsigned letter was circulating on Nimt campuses, and in that letter an anonymous author advised Mueller to sleep with one eye open. Lichtenstrasser's instructions are also that he had been part of a “concerned group” of about 50 Nimt employees who had grievances with Mueller about alleged nepotism at the institute and a lack of a retirement policy at Nimt, Titus said. He added that according to Lichten- strasser he was not at Arandis on the day of the murders. The state is alleging that Lichtenstrasser was not satisfied with the decision to trans- fer him from Tsumeb to Keetmanshoop. It is also alleging that Lichtenstrasser travelled from Otavi, where he lived, to the Arandis area on the day before the double slaying and that he waited for Mueller and Hellwig at the Nimt head office early in the morning of 15 April 2019, and then shot each of them several times with an unlicensed 9mm pistol. The trial, which began in February last year, is continuing. Deputy prosecutor general Antonia Verhoef is prosecuting. Lichtenstrasser, who was arrested at Karibib on 16 April 2019, is being held in custody.