The Johannesburg regional court on Tuesday postponed the murder trial of whistleblower Babita Deokaran to July 22.
The six hired hitmen who stand accused of the murder of Deokaran, a chief director of financial accounting at Gauteng’s health department at the time, are facing charges of murder, attempted murder, and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
It emerged in October last year that the police were struggling to arrest the man suspected to have hired the hitmen. But a source familiar with the case said it was understood that the six suspected killers, all from KwaZulu-Natal, had been organised by a man in the taxi industry.
“The guy has been arrested in connection with the Mall of Africa taxi violence,” said the source.
In November, former health minister Zweli Mkhize instructed his lawyers to write to police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, to probe the circumstances under which his name was dragged into the murder of Deokaran.
One of the suspected hitmen previously told the court that he had been tortured by the police and forced to implicate Mkhize in what has been called a political hit.
“Dr Mkhize has instructed his lawyers to write to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate to investigate the circumstances surrounding the extraction and acceptance into evidence of the reported ‘confession’ whose value could only have been to cause him political embarrassment.
“Dr Mkhize would like to take this opportunity to assure Ms Deokaran’s family and all South Africans who are still reeling from the trauma of this callous crime that he has absolutely nothing to do with it nor the alleged procurement irregularities which are believed to have driven it,” read a statement at the time.
Deokaran died in a hail of bullets outside her home in the south of Johannesburg in August 2021. She had been a witness in the Special Investigating Unit’s probe of the personal protective equipment scandal in the department.
Mkhize said it should be remembered that the alleged procurement irregularities took place at a provincial level, and not where he was deployed as minister.
The case has been transferred to the high court.
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