State 'failed in Lotz case'
01/11/2007 14:45  - (SA)  

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Cape Town - The State had failed to prove its case against hammer murder accused Fred van der Vyver, his defence team told the Cape High Court on Thursday.

Advocate Henri Viljoen was delivering a summary of the case for Van der Vyver, who is charged with killing his student girlfriend Inge Lotz in her Stellenbosch flat in March 2005.

Viljoen said far from the State proving its case beyond reasonable doubt, the overwhelming probabilities showed Van der Vyver was innocent.

He said one of the key pieces of evidence was a fingerprint of Van der Vyver's, allegedly lifted from a DVD cover found in her flat and rented at a time that would have destroyed Van der Vyver's alibi that he was at work when she died.

Because it would establish his guilt, the print had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, the directorate of public prosecutions told the defence team in a letter in December last year that it had no intention of using the fingerprint as evidence.

Attached to the letter, was a report from a police forensic expert from Pretoria which said two parallel lines seen on the lift were consistent with a drinking glass, not with a DVD cover.

Nor was the background density of the aluminium powder on the lift consistent with a DVD cover, which retained a large amount of powder probably due to static build-up in the plastic.

This refuted the evidence of the constable who actually did the fingerprint lifts at Lotz' flat that the lift came from the cover.

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