Pretoria - Taxi driver Michael Phaleng’s severely tortured body – found earlier this week – has not only raised questions about his death, but infuriated the community of Soshanguve.
Phaleng went missing a week ago. His battered body was found on Monday in Hammanskraal.
The 30-year-old left his Soshanguve home last Wednesday to do his normal rounds as a taxi driver, but did not return.
His worried mother opened a missing person’s case at the Akasia police station the following day.
“On Wednesday evening he called his girlfriend, Kabelo, and told her he had been hijacked in Soshanguve XX section.
“He said he spoke to his boss who was on her way to pick him up. That was the last we heard from him,” said his mother Carolyn Phaleng.
“However, a few hours later his phone was switched off,” she said.
She said her family was alerted by a newspaper article of a body found in Hammanskraal.
Police appealed to the public to come forth to identify the body. “The description matched his. We went to the government mortuary to identify him and found it was him.”
Phaleng had been working as a taxi driver for the past seven months, but operating without the necessary documentation.
“The last person, apparently, to see him alive was the owner of the taxi. She did not report her (Toyota) Venture as hijacked, but opened a case of driving the vehicle without the driver’s consent,” she said.
Phaleng said her son’s body was battered and bruised, and his head was caved in in three places.
She said it appeared as though his body had been discarded days before it was found.
Soshanguve residents have been angered and claim that the taxi owner was behind Phaleng’s death.
One of the residents, who asked not to be named, said the taxi owner accused Phaleng of selling her vehicle.
An angry group of about 70 people gathered and confronted the taxi owner.
But a family member addressed them, and told them that the matter was being handled by the police and he could not give them any details.
The crowd vowed to return to the house later on before being dispersed by police.
“We know that she knows what happened to him. She and someone else went to pick him up and nobody heard from him afterwards.
“The guy who went with her even ran away to Limpopo when he found out that the community was angry and wanted to question him,” the resident claimed.
Police spokeswoman Reneilwe Makwalo confirmed that a missing person’s case was opened and closed after the victim was found.
She said the case that Phaleng was accused of, of driving a vehicle without the owner’s consent, was also closed after his body was found.
“Right now the officer who was investigating both those cases needs to open a murder case for us to investigate what happened,” she said.
Pretoria News