A presidential bodyguard facing a murder charge was rearrested on Thursday after allegedly breaking his bail conditions.
Timothy Sabata Mvula will spend a night in the Kuils River police cells before appearing in the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court on Friday to apply for bail on the new charge.
Mvula, a sergeant, was scheduled to appear in the court on Thursday for a routine postponement on the murder charge.
It was to be his third appearance since he was arrested in June for allegedly shooting a man and wounding a woman in an argument at a tavern at Eerste River on the Cape Flats.
He was released on R1 000 bail on that charge.
However, when he entered the dock on Thursday morning, prosecutor Denzil Combrink told Magistrate Linda van Tonder that Mvula was also going to be charged with breaching bail conditions.
Van Tonder said that matter should be dealt with first, and postponed the matter to after lunch.
Mvula, hiding his face from press photographers, was taken by an Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) investigator to the Kleinvlei police station, where he was charged anew and detained.
When he appeared again at Blue Downs late on Thursday afternoon — this time emerging from the holding cells — Van Tonder said it was too late to deal with a bail application on the new charge, and postponed the case to Friday.
Western Cape head of the ICD Thabo Leholo told the South African Press Association that Mvula allegedly breached a condition barring him from the area where the killing took place.
Witnesses had reported seeing him in the area, Leholo said.
His bail conditions were that he should not enter the Eerste River area, contact witnesses, or travel abroad. — Sapa