Johannesburg - Two alleged car thieves were wounded in a shoot-out with police and two illegal firearms were seized on the corner of Lenin and London roads in Alexandra, Johannesburg on Saturday morning, the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Gauteng said.
It was alleged that the suspects were stealing a VW Polo at the car-wash in River Park some time after 7am, Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said on Sunday.
"The owner of the vehicle confronted them. As the owner was involved in a struggle with one of the suspects, police officers who were on routine patrol stopped. In the process, the suspects fired shots at them. During an ensuing shoot-out, two of these suspects were wounded."
One suspect was under police guard at the Thembisa Hospital while the other was treated and discharged at the local clinic. Cases of attempted murder, car theft, and possession of unlicensed firearms were being investigated. Both suspects would appear in the local magistrates' court within 48 hours, Dlamini said.
In an unrelated incident in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, a 33-year-old man was due to appear in the local magistrates' court on Monday after he handed himself over to police "for the killing of his 74-year-old mother".
When police visited the scene, they discovered the body of an elderly woman. It was suspected that she died due to strangulation, but the exact cause of death would be established when a postmortem had been done on the body. The motive for the killing was still unknown, Dlamini said.