A //Kharas region resident accused of murdering his girlfriend on Christmas Day in 2020 told a police officer he thought he was stabbing a gay apparition making a sexual advance to him.
In reality, he killed his girlfriend.
This is according to testimony heard by judge Dinnah Usiku in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility yesterday.
The testimony was given by a police officer, detective warrant officer Daureen Stephanus, during the trial of Keetmanshoop resident Johannes Saul Claasen (37).
Claasen is standing trial on counts of murder, attempted murder and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, with all of the charges read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act.
The state is alleging that Claasen murdered his then girlfriend, Ridensia Lamberth (28), at Keetmanshoop on 25 December 2020 by stabbing her in the chest with a knife.
Claasen is also accused of attempting to murder his and Lamberth’s 11-month-old daughter by stabbing her in the neck and in the back of her head during the same incident that claimed Lamberth’s life.
He is further accused of assaulting Lamberth at Keetmanshoop during March 2020.
Claasen is denying guilt on the charges.
Stephanus testified that she recorded a statement made by Claasen on 26 December 2020.
In the statement, Claasen says after he had gone to bed during the evening of 24 December 2020, he woke up and saw an “old woman” in his room.
Her says he told the “unknown old woman” to go out. He then went to sit in a chair, and saw Lamberth entering the room.
When he saw Lamberth, the “old woman” disappeared and he went back to bed with Lamberth, he told Stephanus.
He says he did not sleep, and then realised that Lamberth and her two daughters were not in the room – but that there were two gay people in the room instead.
The two people “started wrestling with me because they want to sleep with me”, Claasen told Stephanus.
“I managed to get off the bed and I took out a butcher’s knife between the bed and mattress and I stabbed the one,” Claasen adds.
“After I pulled out the knife I realised that it was my girlfriend that I stabbed and these two [gay people] disappeared,” he also says.
He left the room to summon Lamberth’s mother after that, Claasen says.
He was later told that his and Lamberth’s baby was hurt and that she had a cut wound to her neck.
After police officers arrived at the scene, he told them he had stabbed Lamberth and in the same process, cut his daughter, who was lying on her mother’s chest at that time, Claasen told Stephanus.
He says he apologised to Lamberth’s mother and told her that he intended to stab one of the gay people in his room, and not Lamberth.
“We did not quarrel during the day, we were happy,” Claasen says at the end of the statement.
A medical doctor who carried out a post-mortem examination on Lamberth’s body, Dr Refanus Kooper, also testified yesterday.
Kooper said Lamberth was stabbed in the heart and that her liver was injured as well.
The fatal stab wound was about 20 centimetres deep, Kooper said.
“The force that was used was very intense,” he said about the fatal injury.
The trial is continuing.
State advocate Maria Shilongo is prosecuting.
Legal aid lawyer Meriam Kandoni is representing Claasen, who is being held in custody.
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