Hawks positive about imminent arrest in DA councillor murder

19 August 2016

Cape Town - The Hawks are confident they will soon be making an arrest in the murder case of Democratic Alliance councillor Johannes Baaitjies in the Northern Cape this week.

"Our members are following up on tangible information," said Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi.

"We are very confident that we will crack this case," he said, adding that the death was being treated as a murder.

Another person in the car was critically injured, said Mulaudzi.

Baaitjies was found dead on the main road between Danielskuil and Postmasburg on Wednesday night with two bullet wounds to the head and another to his upper body.

He was due to be sworn in as a councillor at the Kgatelopele municipality on Thursday, the DA's Northern Cape leader Andrew Louw said on Thursday.

By-election

Louw said the married father of three boys had received death threats shortly after winning Ward 2, previously held by the African National Congress.

Two DA councillors, along with two councillors from the Kgatelopele Community Forum (KFC), were to form a coalition government and take control of the municipality from the ANC, Louw added.

The council is now hung, and the DA will have to contest the ward again when the IEC sets a by-election date.

News24 earlier reported that constituency head Boitumelo Babuseng said Baaitjies knew he was in danger.

"He told me as a constituency head last week in Afrikaans: 'Die mense will my dood maak [These people want to kill me]'," Babuseng said.

When Babuseng pressed Baaitjies on the nature of the threats, he replied: "Die mense van die ANC [These people of the ANC]."

Comment was not immediately available from a spokesperson for the national and regional office of the ANC.

The by-election is expected to be in November, and there were already three by-elections planned.

Two are as a result of deaths, and one because a councillor was on both the ward council list and the proportional representation (PR) list. He opted for the PR seat, leaving the ward council seat vacant.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the killing of ANC Eastern Cape councillor Zolile Malangeni and his wife Ntombovuyo continues.

Colonel Mzukisi Fatyela said police were still working on the case.

The couple was shot in their home in Mayamuleni, Tsolo, on Thursday night, with two small children present.

The children were not physically harmed. Malangeni's wife, who was Mhlontlo municipality's local economic development director, died at the house while Malangeni died later in hospital.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.