/ 14 February 2003

Sizzlers: second suspect sings

Western Cape police made another breakthrough in the Sizzlers massacre case when the second suspect, arrested on Thursday night, made a full confession before a Cape Town magistrate on Friday.

Police representative Captain Etienne Terblanche said police had also seized a white BMW allegedly seen leaving the crime scene in the early hours of January 20.

Nine men were found shot dead in the massage parlour in Sea Point. Most of them also had their throats slit. A tenth victim who stumbled out to a nearby garage to raise the alarm was treated at Groote Schuur Hospital. The man known only as Quinton and in his 20s had been discharged from Groote Schuur Hospital.

He had two bullets removed from his head. He is presently being held in a safe house at an undisclosed destination in the Western Cape.

Deputy Provincial Commissioner Mzwandile Petrols told a hastily called media briefing at provincial police headquarters in Cape Town on Thursday night that two men had been arrested.

The first man arrested was a 42-year-old man at a house in Mitchell’s Plain at 5am.

The second man, a 26-year-old man, who worked as a waiter at a well known establishment at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, was arrested at his place of work at 8.15am.

The arrests followed the release of identikits of the massacre suspects by a top police investigation team earlier this month. Terblanche said that between Thursday night and early Friday morning police seized what they believed was the getaway vehicle.

”The second suspect, the 26-year-old man, was taken to a magistrate early on Friday morning where he made a full confession.”

Terblanche said the white BMW belonged to a third party who was not involved in the massacre.

The suspects will appear in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Monday. – Sapa