Windhoek
Rehoboth resident, Bryan Rickerts, 37, accused of fatally stabbing a Rehoboth shebeen owner, was informed that his trial is set down for February 9 to 26 before Judge Christi Liebenberg in the Windhoek High Court. Rickerts will be represented by lawyer Milton Engelbrecht on instructions of the Directorate of Legal Aid.
He will, however, have to return to court on January 27 for a final case management hearing and for a State advocate to be assigned to his trial. Yesterday Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef, who is handling the pre-trial preparations for the PG’s office, informed Judge Liebenberg that she received a reply to her pre-trial memorandum.
According to the reply the admissibility of an admission will be in dispute, as the accused claims he was influenced by his mother to plead guilty to the offence.
Rickerts indicated that he will depend on a defence of non-pathological criminal incapacity since he cannot recall any of the chain of events that lead to the fatal stabbing. He is charged with stabbing Shaun Roderick Beukes to death at a shebeen in Rehoboth’s Block E residential area on February 7, 2014. He faces a further charge of defeating, obstructing or attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice for allegedly hiding two knives behind a corrugated iron shack and threatening State witnesses Albertus Josef Sneiders, Brenda van Wyk and Helga van Wyk with killing them by stabbing.
According to the indictment Rickerts arrived at the shebeen, where the deceased was taking an afternoon nap, armed with two knives, looking for “strong people to stab”. It is further alleged that Rickerts then proceeded to sharpen both knives. When the deceased woke up, Rickerts allegedly remarked that the deceased is also one of those strong men and stabbed the deceased once in the chest, causing death due to an injury to the heart.
Rickerts then ran away and hid the knives behind a corrugated iron shack, with the purpose of defeating or obstructing the course of justice, the indictment further reads. While on bail for the murder, it is further alleged, Rickerts on various occasions threatened the State witnesses mentioned above and caused them to believe that he would kill them to prevent them from testifying in his murder trial.
The last incident of intimidation happened on January 10, 2015 and the threats were reported to the police. Rickerts was subsequently arrested and remains in custody.