A man in his late 20s who claimed to have planted bombs in Soweto told Germiston pub attendants that he bombed the area for the ”flag and the country”.
Maxies manager Jacques Graafft said the man walked into the pub on Thursday and came to the counter crying and claimed he was responsible for the Dhlamini mosque explosion in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Nine explosions ripped through Soweto early on Wednesday morning, killing one person and wounding another. The mosque and railway lines were damaged by the blasts.
Graafft said the man asked to be arrested and handed to the police because he feared for his life. He said he could not take it anymore and the people he worked with were ”after him”.
Graafft said he sounded convincing, was very nervous and kept on crying.
The man said he wanted protection for his wife and child and claimed his accomplices wanted him to fetch more explosives in Vereeniging that were supposed to go off at 2am in the Germiston area.
He told Graafft in Afrikaans that he was Irish and he carried out the bombings for the ”flag and the country”. Graafft was not able to elaborate on what the man meant.
One of the patrons, Thabo Simelane (18) who was at the pub at the time said he saw that the man was in tears when he walked in, but the customers were not alarmed.
”He just told the bar tender that his family was in danger and gave his phone number to the pub keeper and asked him to get protection for his wife and child.”
Graafft said the man explained to him that the explosives in Soweto were planted at 7pm and told him what type they were.
”I believed his story because he seemed to know too much about explosives. He called them (explosives) by (their proper) names,” Graafft said.
Simelane said the patrons were only alarmed when they saw police dogs and were told there was a bomb scare. Police evacuated the pub and sent sniffer dogs in, but nothing was found.
Devan Hugo (22) said it was frightening to see patrons running out of the pub fearing for their lives.
Corne Piater (16) who works at the pub, said some were scared when told of the bomb scare.
”We ran off a few blocks away in case the bomb went off, but nothing happened,” she said.
Graafft said business continued as normal but did not know if patrons would return. Pub owner Albert Piater said he handcuffed the man and called the police.
The man was than handed over to the police and was arrested for making claims about being responsible for one of the Soweto bomb blasts.
Director Henriette Bester of the Gauteng police said the man could not be linked to the Soweto explosions. She said he had phoned the claims in to police, who traced the call.
His flat was searched, and no explosives were found. Beeld reported that the man ran into the pub with tears in his eyes and said there was a bomb on the premises.
The man was due to appear in court on Friday. – Sapa