80 Albert Street in Marshalltown caught fire last year and claimed the lives of 77 people.
A man is due in court soon after admitting to starting a fire that engulfed a residential building in Marshalltown in August 2023, killing 77 people.
The man, who cannot yet be identified, admitted on camera during an inquiry that he set the Usindiso building in the Johannesburg central business district alight to conceal a murder he had committed.
Police spokesperson Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi confirmed in a statement that the suspect would appear in court on Thursday, 25 January, for murder charges.
“The 29-year-old man was arrested after he confessed at the commission of inquiry for being involved in starting the tragic fire. He is expected to appear before a Johannesburg court soon on charges of arson, 76 counts of murder and 120 counts of attempted murder,” Nevhuhulwi said.
During the commission hearing on Tuesday, the suspect testified that he had strangled a man on the first floor of the building. He said he then went to purchase petrol and sprinkled it on the deceased body before he lit a matchstick and fled the scene, not realising that the fire was spreading.
The man claimed that he was high on crystal meth obtained from a drug lord he referred to as “the boss” in the Usindiso building.
He added that the drug lord responsible for the ground floor of the building had asked him to take an individual to a room that was used to beat and interrogate people who “the boss” had an issue with.
Following the testimony, the inquiry’s evidence leader, Ishmael Semenya, argued that the witness statement during the inquiry may not be used against him in court, or during any investigation into the fire.
The commission, which is led by retired constitutional court justice Sisi Khampepe, was launched in October 2023 to determine the cause of the fire.
The Marshalltown Fire Justice Campaign said it hoped the testimony would help the investigations into the fire and that the information sheds light on the safety of the building, given how the fire easily spread.
“The spark of fire rarely results in the conflagration that guts the entire building. For this to happen, the conditions for inflammation in the building must exist. Without further support, a fire will not spread or only spread so slowly that it can be easily extinguished and many people can escape,” the campaign’s coordinator Mametlwe Sebei said.Many of the families displaced after the fire have been housed in Denver, where shacks were erected by the City of Johannesburg, but witnesses say people are still living in the Usindiso building despite it being declared unsafe.