Durban - Two men were arrested in connection with the death of uThukela District municipality deputy mayor and National Freedom Party (NFP) member, Bheki Mazibuko.
Provincial police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said the suspects, 25 and 26 years old, were arrested on Sunday. He said a third suspect was still at large.
“A knife which is suspected to be the murder weapon was recovered from the house of one of the suspects. They will appear in the Bergville Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday,” Naicker said.
Mazibuko, 35, who survived an assassination attempt in April last year when his car was riddled with bullets by two gunmen, was hacked with a bush knife in Bergville, in the early hours of Saturday.
Last year’s attack on Mazibuko was believed to have been politically motivated.
NFP provincial chairman, Vikizitha Mlotshwa, said a police investigation would reveal the motive behind Mazibuko’s killing. He was not accompanied by his bodyguards when he was killed.
“He went to the area looking for men he had sent to fetch his music system which he had hired out. His concern was the car he had given to the men as they had been gone for a long time. When he got to the area he saw the car parked near the tavern and when he enquired, he was allegedly told by people that the men had gone into the tavern for a short while and left,” Mlotshwa said.
Apparently Mazibuko’s associates had a quarrel with some men in the tavern and when things got heated, they left to fetch the music system. They did not take the car because the road to the house is too narrow for vehicles.
“When the group of men heard that he was looking for his associates, they confronted him, charging that he was one of the men they had quarrelled with. He tried to explain, but they attacked him. As he was running away they caught up with him, hacking him with a bush knife. He died on the scene,” Mlotshwa said.
According to Mlotshwa, when Mazibuko’s associates returned with the music system they heard that he had been attacked and retreated to a mountainous area for fear of their own lives.
Mazibuko became deputy mayor in May after the party nominated the then deputy mayor, Maliyakhe Shelembe, to the National Assembly along with party leader Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi
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