AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER
IN an unusual step, South African president has praised the country’s top detectives who made a breakthrough, arresting five suspects in connection with the 2014 murder of national goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa.
Heads of of state don’t normally comment on police investigations but Ramaphosa has seen it fit to comment on a major development on a murder case that has gripped South Africa for the past six years.
Meyiwa, the Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper, was murdered in a house in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg. The case went cold, raising the ire of his family, friends and supporters.
South African Police Minister General Bheki Cele announced yesterday – on the sixth anniversary of the murder of the national and continental sports icon – that five suspects had been arrested in Gauteng and Kwa Zulu-Natal.
Cele said the arrests were the result of a multidisciplinary integrated approach to the investigation, with the police working closely with the National Directorate for Public Prosecutions.
Ramaphosa said the breakthrough in the Meyiwa case is attributable to the establishment two years ago by the National Commissioner of Police of a Cold Case Team to reopen unsuccessful investigations.
“Today is a day on which we revisit the sadness that affected millions of us as South Africans when we lost Senzo Meyiwa in 2014. But this anniversary is mitigated by the arrest of five suspects who have been unable to escape the reach of the law, regardless of the passage of time. We congratulate the police for their hard work and persistence. We must now allow the criminal justice system and the judiciary to do their work and handle this matter to finality,” Ramaphosa said.
