Publications
Partners
A year since prominent businessman Wandile Bozwana was murdered more high profile arrests are expected.
Four suspects were arrested months after the murder but a year down the line the big question remains: Who ordered the suspected hit?
There has been growing speculation about the imminent arrest of prominent figures once the trial gets under way.
It may be some time before the trial proceeds, with the state having told the court sitting at Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria earlier today that it needed more time to finalise the indictment or formal charges of the four.
Sources close to the investigation said one of the arrested suspects had given clues on who could be behind the suspected hit on the 43-year-old former police captain-turned-businessman.
The sources said the state was also hoping for one “person who may not necessarily be behind bars already to turn state witness in what would lead to some shocking arrests, but this can only happen once the state starts leading its evidence”.
City Press reported in June that the spotlight of the investigation was shifting to the Northern Cape and the North West, where financiers of the hit were believed to be.
READ: Bozwana murder accused spills the beans
Meanwhile, the investigation hit a snag after three of the four suspects refused to have their pictures taken.
Prosecutor Matric Luphondo applied for an order to have the suspects’ pictures taken, saying they were going to be checked against faces captured on CCTV footage as part of the investigation.
He said the suspects previously refused to have their pictures taken based “on legal advice”.
Advocate Victor Nkwashu – who represents Sipho Dludla and Matamela Motapa and the alleged coordinator of the hit, Pretoria businessman Vusi Mathibela Sipho Dludla – told the court his clients were opposed to their pictures being taken.
The fourth suspect, Bonginkosi Khumalo, who was represented by a different lawyer could not immediately say if he was opposed to the state’s application.
The application by the state for an order to have pictures taken was postponed to November 9 and the main case was postponed to November 30 to allow the state to finalise the indictment.
Bozwana was killed on October 2 last year at the Garsfontein offramp on the N1.
Police said he was sitting on the passenger side of a stationary Renault Clio at a traffic light when a BMW M3 stopped and a man jumped out and started firing at the vehicle.
The businessman was hit by nine bullets and died at a nearby hospital later. The driver of the car they were travelling in was also shot, but survived.
Bozwana – who benefited from several government tenders and grew his business empire as a construction and property magnate operating mainly in Gauteng, North West and the Northern Cape – was known for being outspoken against the alleged blacklisting of some businesses in the North West.
At the time of his death he was involved in a legal wrangle with the North West government that was preventing him from attaching 44 government-owned vehicles and a state bank account with a balance of R30 million in seeking a payment of more than R40 million owed to him in relation to the Brits hospital construction.
| |||||||||||||
