WINDHOEK – Lukas Nepela Nikodemus, the man charged with the murder and burning of two young women at a rubbish dump in Pionierspark suburb in Windhoek, stuck to his story that he did not kill the deceased and was framed by a person called Bennie when he testified in his own defense during Monday and Tuesday this week in the Windhoek High Court.
According to Nikodemus, the last time he saw his two girlfriends was during the evening of January 06, 2016 when they left together with “Bennie” in his car to buy more alcohol.
He further told the court he only saw “Bennie” around midnight on the night in question when he brought him his car keys and told him that the car got stuck on an open field in Otjomuise’s Agste Laan location. According to Nikodemus, when he asked “Bennie” about the two ladies, he was told they were with the car.
He said he then decided to take a taxi to his car and took along an empty five litre container incase the car ran out of fuel.
Upon his arrival at his car, he found the car abandoned in a field with the battery terminals loose and the two ladies nowhere to be seen and he then fastened the terminals after which he drove the car to the house of the mother of one of his children to leave it there for safekeeping.
He further told Windhoek High Court Judge Christi Liebenberg he also took some clothes for his child along and that he knocked at the house of his former girlfriend, but got no reply. He then locked everything including the container and a water can he only mentioned during cross-examination in the car and went back to his house. The next day while he was preparing to wash his clothes before going to fetch his car, the police arrived and he was arrested, Nikodemus narrated.
He vehemently denied assertions by police officers that was part of the team that arrested him that he admitted to them that one of the ladies killed the other one and that he then killed her.
Nikodemus told the judge that when they arrived at the house of the former girlfriend where he stashed his car, the car was opened and it was only then that he saw blood on the seats.
He denied seeing the bullet holes in the car and the seats and said that it was too dark.
He said that he only saw the bullet holes the next day at the police station when the car was examined by scene of crime officers of the Namibian Police Force.
He further denied he was the one that fired the shots that killed the two ladies, 29-year-old Joanie Naruses and 23-year-old Clementina de Wee during the period 06 to 07 January 2016 and set their dead bodies alight. An ammunitions expert from the Namibia Scientific Institute already testified that he was satisfied a bullet found in the car came from the pistol of Nikodemus.
The accused had already testified that the pistol was never out of his possession.
During cross-examination and various questions from the judge on why he did not put fuel into the container and refuel his car, Nikodemus was dumfounded and merely said he just decided to go home and fetch the car the next day. Judge Liebenberg also wanted to know from him why he took the container along in the first place and he said it was so that he won’t have to ask for help in case his car was without fuel.
This prompted Judge Liebenberg to ask him again why he then did not fill the container to refuel his car and he could just repeat that he decided to go home as it was already late and he will just fetch the car the next morning.
The trial is continuing on Monday when Mbanga Siyomunji, the State funded lawyer of Nikodemus, will indicate to the court whether they will call further witnesses in defense.
The State is represented by Advocate Cliff Lutibezi and Nikodemus remains in custody at the Windhoek Correctional Facility’s section for trial awaiting inmates.