Johannesburg - They have taken more than 100 statements, questioned 30 people and followed up on every piece of information they received, including those from anonymous phone calls made to Crimestop.
Despite this, the police are no closer to finding the person who fired the bullet that killed Orlando Pirates goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa.
The police have also been constantly travelling to other parts of Gauteng and as far as KwaZulu-Natal in pursuit of the killer after getting information that the person they were looking for was there. But they would arrive only to find that the person had nothing to do with Meyiwa’s death.
“We would realise that we had been sent on a wild goose chase,” SAPS spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said on Friday.
A year ago on Monday Meyiwa was shot and killed on a cold Sunday night while visiting Kelly Khumalo, his pop star girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, in Vosloorus.
At the time, Khumalo, her two young children, her mother and her sister as well as her sister’s boyfriend and two of Meyiwa’s friends were in the house.
Allegations are that Meyiwa was shot by robbers who had stormed into the house and that he had died on the way to hospital.
Meyiwa’s family aren’t happy with the SAPS’s investigations.
Meyiwa’s father, Sam, told the Saturday Star that the family were losing confidence in the police.
“How’s it possible that no one has been arrested after a whole year?” said Sam.
He described the resignation of a key police investigator from the team probing his son’s murder as “fishy”.
And it isn’t just the Meyiwas who are worried about the lack of progress in the investigation.
“Someone knows something and needs to come out with the truth,” said Thabani Msibi, who lives in Kutlwanong Street, the same street as the house in which Meyiwa was killed.
“People don’t believe that Senzo could have just been shot for a cellphone. I still don’t buy the robbery story,” he added.
Makgale said police were working hard to crack the case.
He said DNA samples of the alleged killer were taken at the scene and police were looking for a match.
He said the police had also taken all the guns they seized from suspects to check whether they could be linked to Meyiwa’s murder.
“We are following up on everything and don’t dismiss anything. We have followed up on every lead from the PSL (Premier Soccer League). We don’t have anything else except what we got from the people who were in the house,” Makgale said.
At the start of the investigations, people who were present during the murder gave police information on who Meyiwa’s killer was and also helped with the drawing of an identikit.
Zamokuhle Mbatha, who lived near the house where Meyiwa was killed, was later arrested and pointed out at an identity parade as Meyiwa’s killer. He was kept in custody for 13 days before charges against him were withdrawn.
He is suing Police Minister Nathi Nhleko for R7.5 million – R5m for defamation and R2.5m for illegal and wrongful arrest.
His lawyer, Mxolisi Ndwandwe, said his client was still suffering because of the wrongful arrest, incarceration and the stigma of being labelled a murderer. Mbatha was battling to get a job and wherever he went people were calling him a murderer.
“They are saying he used muti to get out of the case. He used to get piece jobs but he can’t get them now and I don’t see him getting one very soon. He is even scared of looking for one because he does not know who will attack him.
“The problem is that most people are also not educated and will not understand why is he free. He is seeing a psychologist,” he said.
The Star
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