Following a DNA database match connected him to the crime scene, a father-of-eight suspected of killing a German national following a sexual encounter was connected to the 15-year-old crime.
Naji Fakhreddine, a former cab driver, is suspected of killing Bernd Lehmann inside his Sydney house after being connected to the deceased with updated forensic evidence.
On the day he was scheduled to travel to Germany to take care of his elderly mother, Lehmann passed away in 2008.
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, the 66-year-old’s body was discovered inside his Ashfield flat laying face down in the entryway next to a bloody figurine.
Prosecutor Sally Traynor stated during the opening of the Crown case on Tuesday that Fakhreddine assaulted Lehmann during a sexual encounter and repeatedly struck him in the head with the 2.7 kilogram statuette.
The bloodied instrument, which was thought to be the weapon used in the vicious attack, had Fakhreddine’s fingerprints on it, the jury was informed.
According to Traynor, his semen was also found in the deceased’s mouth, and his DNA was found on cigarettes that were discovered nearby on a coffee table.
She acknowledged the circumstantial nature of the crown case but urged the jury to take the whole of the evidence into account.
According to Traynor, the evidence suggested that Fakhreddine had oral intercourse with Lehmann a few hours prior to his passing.
The bloodied sculpture had Fakhreddine’s fingerprints on it, the jury was informed. The court heard that evidence from the crime scene was connected to a profile for Fakhreddine’s son in 2021 through a family search of a DNA database.
According to Traynor, police then received a DNA sample from the alleged murderer, and it matched forensic evidence gathered from Lehmann’s residence.
Jennifer Ellis, a defense attorney, pleaded with the jurors to exercise patience and openness.
“It is like a jigsaw puzzle where the Crown will ask you to put all the pieces together,” she stated.
“The Crown will suggest to you how to look at the jigsaw puzzle but the Crown will need to exclude all reasonable hypotheses consistent with Fakhreddine’s innocence.”
Ellis claimed that the deaths of several possible witnesses, including two neighbors who claimed to have seen a suspicious guy standing outside Lehmann’s building the night before he was killed, hurt the prosecution’s case.
