Johannesburg - A murder accused who skipped bail was almost caught after a Beeld reporter and photographer spotted him at an airport in Mozambique this week, the publication reported on Friday.
Jurgen Vandekeere had been expected to appear in a Delmas court in September in connection with the murder of Chantelle Barnard in 2011, but he left a letter for his parents and disappeared.
Waiting at the airport in Maputo for their flight, Beeld photographer Felix Dlangamandla recognised a man in the waiting area for the flight to Kenya as someone he had photographed before.
After a few calls to colleagues in Johannesburg he and reporter Erika Gibson realised it was Vandekeere. Dlangamandla took a photograph secretly and then they had to board their plane to Johannesburg.
In Johannesburg, Gibson sent a picture she took with her cellphone to prosecutor Phylis Vorster who forwarded it to detectives in Pretoria, who in turn contacted Interpol and Kenyan authorities.
Authorities planned to take him into custody when passengers disembarked. But he was not on the flight.
They think he gave them the slip and caught a connecting flight to Europe.
Vitalis Okumu, Interpol regional head in Nairobi, told Nationmedia in Kenya that their task was complicated by the fact that they did not know which name he was travelling under. - Sapa