/ 13 June 2006

SA envoy to Zim slain near Midrand

A high-ranking diplomat from South Africa’s High Commission in Zimbabwe was shot dead outside a house he had recently bought near Midrand, police said on Tuesday.

North Rand police spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman said Kingsley Sithole, a counsellor at the office in Harare, was attacked by unidentified people driving a black Golf GTI in Ann Street, Olifantsfontein, late on Monday night.

”They got out and fired at him,” said Opperman.

”Police last night conducted investigations at the scene and are continuing ballistic and forensic tests,” he said.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said Sithole had been in South Africa on leave to visit his son who had been involved in a school bus accident.

He had been driving past the house with a friend when he stopped his vehicle and was attacked.

Mamoepa said Sithole joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1994, having previously worked for the African National Congress’s Department of International Affairs under President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said: ”Death has once more robbed us of one of the most-committed cadres in efforts aimed at the renewal of Africa and the creation of a better world.

”We will certainly miss the invaluable contribution that Kingsley made in the evolution of the South African foreign policy”.

Sithole leaves his wife, Cheryl, and children.

No further details were immediately available. — Sapa