Johannesburg - Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa's killers will be caught and brought to book, Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula warned at a memorial service in Johannesburg on Thursday.
“You can run but you can't hide,” Mbalula said at the Standard Bank Arena to pay homage to three sporting figures who died in the past week.
“If they are your friends, if they are your boyfriends, release them,” he said to the cheers of sports fans.
“This nation will ever be at ease until we've found them and the machinery of justice is grinding. Each one of us has the responsibility because somewhere, somehow, someone knows who killed Senzo Meyiwa.”
He was shot dead in Vosloorus, Ekurhuleni, while visiting his singer girlfriend Kelly Khumalo on Sunday evening. Two men entered the house demanding cellphones. They shot him before fleeing.
Former world champion 800m track sensation Mbulaeni Mulaudzi was killed in a car accident in Mpumalanga on Friday. He was on his way to Johannesburg when he lost control of his car.
Welterweight boxer Phindile Mwelase died on Saturday after being in coma for two weeks following a bout.
The service was attended by, among others, ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, SA Football Association president Danny Jordaan, and Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba.
Mbalula said Meyiwa's hard work to rise through the national ranks should serve as an inspiration to South Africans.
“May the death of Senzo Meyiwa be an inspiration to succeed even more and be inspired by his deeds,” he said.
“We must consolidate our resolve as a nation to clean our streets of criminals and let us not celebrate criminals. Let a criminal remain a criminal and not a role model.”
Sapa