Cape Town -It could be a plot from the dusty pages of a KGB crime novel.
Almost a year ago the Strand was rocked by a hit on a Belgian resident. He was gunned down outside the home he rented from a Russian skipper who mysteriously disappeared after the incident.
In an exclusive interview with Weekend Argus, John Hilton, 74, who claims to have been a confidant of skipper Dmitri Sarenok, detailed what happened in the months and days before and after Sarenok’s tenant, Jurgen Rombouts, 26, was gunned down on April 25.
This includes a car chase, interim protection orders, video footage and the Russian skipper’s movements. Hilton believes he can shed some light on the murder and the Russian’s subsequent disappearance.
Hilton believes that after the killing Sarenok staged his own suicide on a boat that days later washed up on Glencairn beach and that he is in hiding and may resurface.
“It’s unfinished business. It’s the Russian way,” Hilton said.
Rombouts had been renting a house in the Strand from Sarenok and was shot dead outside this home.
A gunman in a Nissan Sani rammed his vehicle into Rombout’s BMW. Both men got out of their cars and Rombouts was shot. The perpetrator then sped away. In a nearby street he jumped out of his car and set it alight.
Hilton said Sarenok appointed him to take care of his affairs when he was out the country. He then became embroiled in an ongoing row with Sarenok’s tenant, Rombouts, who together with his girlfriend had moved into Sarenok’s Strand house in June 2013, while Sarenok was at sea. The authorities were contacted on several occasions.
Hilton said he believed a professional hit man had been hired to kill Rombouts. Sarenok’s belongings, worth thousands of rands, including a crossbow, pellet gun, leather jackets and a model ship, were locked in the house’s third bedroom. Hilton said he repeatedly tried to get into the house to see if all was in order, but Rombouts had refused him entry.
This had led to a spat between the two and each applying for a protection order against the other.
In interim protection order documents against Hilton, Rombouts said a boat on the property belonged to Sarenok and that Hilton had needed to occasionally start it. He and his girlfriend did not mind, as long as Hilton let them know beforehand.
But the documents said Hilton was later repeatedly caught “sneaking around the house for unknown reasons”.
In the document Rombouts said he reported Hilton to the police and had received a fake eviction notice.
Rombouts and his girlfriend had decided to look for a new house to rent.
During the interview, Hilton said he had been worried about the state of Sarenok’s home and that was why he wanted to inspect it.
Sarenok later returned to Cape Town and last year on February 10 met Hilton at a local store. Hilton said he gave Sarenok the keys to the house then left and later returned.
He parked near the store and got out to purchase a newspaper.
“Rombouts comes driving in his BMW. I walk back (to my car) and he almost mows me down.
“I got in my car and he chased after me,” Hilton said.
He claimed that Rombouts followed him to a nearby informal area and started taking video footage of him
and provided Weekend Argus with video footage, apparently taken by Rombouts.
A man’s voice on the video can be heard saying: “Police is coming for him. They coming for him.”
But in a subsequent statement on the incident, Rombouts had told the police he had discovered Hilton in his yard and Hilton threatened “to kill my wife and then me”.
There is also video footage of another incident taken by Hilton’s son outside the house with Rombouts approaching Hilton.
A police van arrives shortly afterwards and Rombouts can be heard telling officers “this is the guy… that is trespassing on my property, alright, and that just keeps on being a hassle”.
At one point, Rombouts can be heard saying: “I’ll f**k you up in front of the police with that.”
This week Hilton said the day he heard that Rombouts was dead he received an SMS at “7.35am from Dmitri. It just said ‘goodbye’”.
Sarenok then left the harbour in Gordon’s Bay in a ski boat which washed up on Glencairn beach days later.
Ammunition for a pistol and liquor were found on aboard and the keys were still in the ignition. Hilton said before Rombouts’s murder, Sarenok had said something cryptic : “Wait till I’m gone before you do anything.”
He said this implied Sarenok had been planning to disappear.
Last year police said the murder case remained unsolved. They did not respond to a query this week.
Weekend Argus