Barman recalls ‘bizarre behaviour’
NOVELLA: PACED UP AND DOWN RECEPTION AREA
Suspect accused of 2015 murder of marketing executive girlfriend.
The Camps Bay Retreat Hotel barman yesterday described Guatemalan murder accused Diego Novella’s “bizarre behaviour” in the early hours of July 29, 2015.
Jean Nyabenda, a French speaking Burundian, told the Western Cape High Court that Novella stared at him for 15 minutes, mimicked playing a guitar, paced up and down and danced from about 1am that morning.
“I was, like, maybe there is something wrong with this guy,” said Nyabenda.
Novella has been charged with murdering his American marketing executive girlfriend Gabriella Alban, who was found by hotel staff in the room they were sharing on the afternoon of July 29, 2015.
She had been strangled, had blunt force trauma to her face and had defensive wounds on her arms.
Nyabenda testified that he had been “astonished” when Novella stared at him for about 15 minutes while he sat behind the reception desk. “I didn’t speak to him, but all the time I was asking myself, why is he staring at me like this?” testified Nyabenda.
Novella had ordered a Virgin Mary drink and paced up and down the reception area.
Several hours later, when two other hotel staff members, Sarah and Diana, arrived for their shift, he told them Novella had not slept.
He told the court that Sarah told Novella he should get some sleep, and he replied, “What is sleep? I can’t go and sleep because to me sleeping is nothing”.
Nyabenda said he couldn’t understand why he had paid for a room, but then slept in front of the reception area on the floor.
“It made me ask why he was behaving like that. It is what made me think there was something wrong with this man,” he said.
“He behaved in this bizarre way over a period of some hours.”
Last month, the court heard that Novella had taken cannabis oil and sceletium before the murder.
His defence will argue diminished capacity due to drug intoxication. Novella claims he cannot recall killing Alban and denies he had intent to murder her.
“At the time of the said incident I was in an abnormal mental state as a result of the intake of substances. These substances had a disinhibiting effect on me, causing me to respond in an abnormal manner,” he said in his plea statement.
The trial continues. – ANA