Police on Thursday confirmed that they had questioned the father of 17-year-old Anika Smit who was murdered in Pretoria North in March.
“We are questioning the father as part of the investigation procedure,” spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said.
Dlamini told Sapa he was unable to give any further information.
Johan Smit was questioned intensively for three hours about his daughter's murder, the Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday.
“I'm trying to deal with the death of my child and then I get this kind of drama. I don't know how to handle it,” Johan Smit told the newspaper on Tuesday night.
Smit said the police did not state outright that he was the main suspect in their investigation.
“The way they questioned me made me feel like I was the main suspect,” he said.
Smit told Beeld that he sympathised with Nico Venter, 21, who was initially charged with Anika's murder.
He said the police had now shifted their focus to him on the basis of a statement he made to police on March 10, regarding the circumstances of his daughter's death.
Venter, a project manager at the Carousel Casino in North West, had all charges against him withdrawn two weeks ago in the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court.
Anika Smit was found dead at her father's Theresa Park home in Pretoria North in March.
The Grade 11 pupil at Hoërskool Gerrit Maritz in Pretoria had been raped, her throat was slit and her hands were cut off. - Sapa