Pretoria – Following the brief court appearance today of five people arrested in connection with the July mass shooting at Mdlalose Tavern in Nomzamo Park, in Orlando East, Soweto, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said more suspects would be brought to justice.
Phindi Mjonondwane, NPA Gauteng spokesperson, said the tavern shooting suspects were linked to other crimes.
“They appeared for the 16 murders that happened at Nomzamo tavern and three other murder cases emanate from other dockets that were combined with the Nomzamo one,” Mjonondwane told to journalists outside the Orlando Magistrate’s Court.
“We have about four cases from Orlando SAPS and two from Kliptown SAPS which are all then combined into one docket to formulate charges they have appeared for, which is 19 charges of murder, multiple counts of attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and defeating the ends of justice.”
She said two of the accused are South African and the other three are from Lesotho.
“Investigations are progressing very well and at this stage we do suspect that it is a syndicate that wanted to control abandoned mines, dumping sites and the cable theft syndicate,” said Mjonondwane.
The matter was postponed to October 18.
Last week, police confirmed that two suspects linked to the July shooting which left 16 people dead, had been arrested.
“On September 22, 2022, national crime intelligence officers arrested one suspect who was then linked to the Nomzamo shooting incident in Johannesburg,” Gauteng police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili said on Friday.
The suspect then led the team to one of his accomplices, who was arrested in Northern Cape on Friday.
“The team proceeded to arrest two more suspects, linked to a murder case for an incident that occurred in Kliptown in October 2021, where a Lesotho musician was killed,” said Muridili.
The fourth suspect was apprehended on a warrant of arrest for a double murder incident that occurred in Doornkop in 2021, where two Basotho nationals were killed.
In July, Police Minister Bheki Cele said crime scene experts had recovered at least 130 used bullet casings of AK-47 assault rifles after the Soweto tavern shooting.
IOL