{"id":2410,"date":"2011-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/amabhungane\/stories\/two-charged-with-political-killing\/"},"modified":"2011-04-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T00:00:00","slug":"two-charged-with-political-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/two-charged-with-political-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"Two charged with ‘political’ killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of the head of communications of Mpumalanga’s department of sports, culture and recreation, Sammy Mpatlanyane, last year.<\/p>\n

However it remains unclear whether the police have evidence directly linking the pair to the murder or are relying on an earlier attempted break-in at Mpatlanyane’s home.<\/p>\n

Mpatlanyane was shot dead in his Nelspruit house on January 8 2010.<\/p>\n

His murder has been viewed as one of a series of politically motivated killings that have dogged the province.<\/p>\n

There have been rumours that before he was killed, he was resisting the award of a government tender, but no one has come up with a compelling motive for the killing.<\/p>\n

No forced entry was detected at his house and the security alarm went off only after he was shot. <\/p>\n

Several bullets were fired into the headboard of his bed and Mpatlanyane sustained wounds to his chest. <\/p>\n

He appears to have struggled with his assassin during the attack. <\/p>\n

A firearm belonging to an officer employed at the police provincial supply chain department was found next to the body.<\/p>\n

The gun, reported stolen two weeks before Mpatlanyane’s death, was allegedly taken from under the officer’s pillow while he was asleep.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday last week, police arrested a Mozambican national, Nito Machava, in connection with eight housebreaking cases in and around Nelspruit<\/p>\n

A Mpatlanyane family member who asked to remain anonymous said that there were signs of an attempted break-in at Mpatlanyane’s home before the night of the murder. <\/p>\n

The case was reported at Nelspruit police station.<\/p>\n

Mpumalanga police spokesman Captain Leonard Hlathi declined to say whether Machava’s fingerprints matched those recovered from the house after the attempted break-in. <\/p>\n

Machava allegedly escaped through a toilet window at the police station last Thursday, but police later re-arrested him at the local taxi rank.<\/p>\n

Hlathi refused to comment. “I cannot confirm or deny anything, as it would jeopardise the case,” he told the Mail & Guardian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Police said Machava’s arrest had led to the related arrest of a Tanzanian street vendor, Issa Omara (26), on Thursday.<\/p>\n

However, Omara’s attorney, Sifiso Mabilane, said that Omara was arrested on Wednesday at his place of business by a group of organised crime unit members. <\/p>\n

He was allegedly taken to his apartment, which was searched, but was only formally taken into custody and charged on Thursday morning and appeared in court on Monday.<\/p>\n

Mabilane told the court that Omara, who had facial injuries, would allege that the police assaulted him. <\/p>\n

The court ordered him to be taken to Rob Ferreira Hospital for a medical examination.<\/p>\n

Hlathi denied that Omara was assaulted, saying that he had sustained his injuries after resisting arrest. <\/p>\n

Omara was allegedly implicated in a confession that Machava made to the police.<\/p>\n

It is unclear whether the latter has confessed to housebreaking or murder.<\/p>\n

Hlathi confirmed that the stolen gun belonging to the officer was used to kill Mpatlanyane. <\/p>\n

However, he could not reveal the ballistic test results or whether Machava’s fingerprints were found on the weapon.<\/p>\n

The duo appeared again in the Nelspruit Regional Court for a bail application on Thursday. <\/p>\n

A team of more than 10 police tactical response team members searched every person entering the court.<\/p>\n

Machava, who is slightly built, did not have a legal representative and spoke in Portuguese. <\/p>\n

The case was postponed to April 12 2011 for a formal bail application. Both suspects remain in custody. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism, supported by M&G Media and the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, produced this story. All views are the centre’s. www.amabhungane.co.za<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of the head of communications of Mpumalanga’s department of sports, culture and recreation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}