Lotz: Fingerprint causes drama

2007-08-16 08:24

Tanya Menges

Cape Town - An overwhelming body of evidence indicates that Fred van der Vyver's fingerprint was lifted from a glass rather than from a DVD cover.

This was the Cape High Court testimony of Van der Vyver's second expert witness, Arie Zeelenberg, on Wednesday.

Van der Vyver, 25, is charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, 22, in March 2005 in her Stellenbosch flat.

Zeelenberg, a fingerprint expert from the Netherlands, also testified that there were important flaws in the forensic investigation into the handling of the DVD cover.

He showed the court several experiments to prove that the fingerprints had in fact been lifted from a glass.

"It is an accepted fact that the object from which the prints were lifted is of essential importance to the case.

Also that the fact of the fingerprints coming from a glass has implications wider than the case of the accused," Zeelenberg testified.

He said it was impossible for the folien (fingerprint lift) from the DVD cover and the glass to have been exchanged accidentally, as there was no folien from the DVD cover.

"It is highly improbable that a police officer would forget that he had lifted the fingerprint from a glass.

"Seeing that folien 1, allegedly from the DVD cover, actually came from a glass, the folien from the DVD cover either does not exist or has gone missing," he testified.

The folien also indicated wet and dry drops. According to Zeelenberg this did not correspond with the situation at the crime scene, seeing that the fingerprints were only taken the next day and nothing could have been wet anymore.

He also pointed out that there were at least seven identifiable fingerprints that had not yet been linked to people with valid and personal access to Lotz's flat.

The case continues on Thursday.

- Kaapse Son