Lerato Mbhiza
Six people have been arrested in connection with the murder of Kiernan ‘AKA’ Forbes and his friend Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane.
Police Minister Bheki Cele announced that six men, some of whom were recently arrested in eSwatini have been arrested in connection with the murder of South African rapper, AKA, who was shot dead outside a Florida Road restaurant in February last year.
The suspects are due to appear in court on Thursday.
The announcement was made on Tuesday night by Cele, joined by the National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola and KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at the SA Police Services provincial headquarters in Durban.
Mkhwanazi, said investigations have confirmed that Forbes was the main target.
“From our investigation, it became clear that Mr Forbes was the main target, he’s the one that was followed from the airport, caught at the hotel and spotted inside the restaurant.
“The plan was not to shoot him in the manner they did, they were going to shoot him in the vehicle, but because he stood longer outside greeting his friend and those hitmen did not want to wait, that’s why they came for him. The second victim… It was by coincidence.”
Mkhwanazi said the strategy police used to root out the suspects started with the first arrest in April last year.
“The strategy that we employed was, after identifying the six we were looking for in parallel cases they were involved in and we were going to arrest them and keep them in custody, but we won’t charge them on the main case we are investigating, case 85 of February last year in Florida because we wanted to make sure we get almost all the suspects especially the organiser of the hit.”
Mkhwanazi added they have not ruled out the prospects of more arrests.
“Of the six, we have someone who coordinated the whole operation and that’s a person who has all these resources and people and that’s the person who paid them after the job. So if he got an instruction from elsewhere, we cannot say that because we don’t have that evidence.
“At least we know that he’s the one that organised everything, whether he organised under the instruction of someone else, it remains to be seen through their investigation.”
Cele confirmed that the suspects were paid to kill Forbes.
“They got money, they all got paid. The life of a person cannot be enough, but you would think such a high profile person that money would be real.”
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