OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday
AGGRIEVED tenants who were evicted from a Johannesburg house to make way for its new owners are among the four arrested in connection with the execution-style murders of four Cape Town residents in Pretoria this week.
The four were arrested late on Tuesday night, when Pretoria and Brixton detectives followed up leads from an informer, according to a report in the Cape Argus newspaper. Two were detained in Johannesburg North and the other two in Soweto.
Agatha Tapela and three others were found shot in the head in their car in a remote spot near Pretoria. There were plastic bags over their heads and their hands had been tied behind their back.
Tapela, a University of Cape Town student and wife of company executive Jenkins Tapela, was in Johannesburg for a friend’s wedding and to oversee renovations at their new house in Fourways, said the Argus.
Earlier in the investigation, police had probed gang activity and drug dealing as a possible motive for the killings, but detectives later learnt that resentment could be behind the killings.
Police said that among the suspects were previous tenants of the house, who lost their home when the family took occupation.
Jenkins Tapela is company secretary of African Harvest and was preparing to move his family from their Newlands home in Cape Town to Johannesburg when the killings took place. He first heard of the murders when he saw his car on the morning television news.
His wife had travelled to their new home last weekend to oversee final renovations. The other murdered woman found in the car is believed to be a close relative and the two men are artisans from Cape Town.
Detectives believe they may have been kidnapped from the house and then driven to the deserted spot in Reeds, Centurion, outside Pretoria, where they were murdered.
At first police were baffled by the motive for the killings, as no personal belongings or valuables were missing.
Meanwhile, forensic experts have handed fingerprint reports and documents found in the car to detectives. They hope these will positively link the suspects to the crime scene.
Tapela is still in Johannesburg, where his two children are with his brother-in-law, said the Argus.
ZA*NOW:
Drug link probed in Pretoria killings April 11, 2001
Death on a deserted Pretoria road April 10, 2001