High alert for farm murder accused’s day in court

POLICE will seek to prevent any potential violent encounters between the EFF and AfriForum members and other Afrikaner groups by confining them to separate areas in Senekal today and not allowing any marching or movement.

Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba, 32, and Sekola Piet Matlaletsa, 44, both residents of Takalatse in Fateng-Tse-Ntsho township in Paul Roux, are expected to appear in the Senekal Magistrate’s Court for the murder of farm manager Brendin Horner earlier this month.

Police will not allow the public near the vicinity of the court, and all roads around it will be blocked off, according to information obtained by Independent Media.

The three groups would be confined to designated areas around the Free State town and would not be allowed to march or move.

Police set up roadblocks at all entrances to Senekal yesterday, stopping and searching vehicles.

The elder sister of one of the accused, Dimakatso Mahlamba, 41, yesterday said she would not be able to attend the court hearing due to high blood pressure and diabetes.

“It would hurt to see my brother in the dock; I’d probably collapse,” she said.

Their parents will also not be present

in court as they will be attending a relative’s funeral in QwaQwa, while two of Sekwetje’s six siblings will be in court today.

Dimakatso said Sekwetje had been previously arrested for stock theft and assault. However, she did not believe her brother was capable of murder.

According to Dimakatso, her brother has never served a prison sentence for his crimes. She said Sekwetje had never worked in his adult life and that the family survived on his parents’ old-age social grant.

Late yesterday, EFF members in the Free State were driving around Senekal in a vehicle with huge speakers, drumming up support for their planned action.

Party leader Julius Malema told Newzroom Afrika yesterday that the EFF was going to Senekal to protect democracy and the Constitution, which he said was “under threat by racist, terrorist farmers who go and attack a court of law and attack police stations”.

He said the move by farmers to storm the court last week was a declaration of war against the state.

“If the current regime can’t defend the state, we have a responsibility as peace-loving South Africans to defend our state against hooliganism ... against terrorism,” said Malema.

AfriForum yesterday said it was proceeding with its peaceful protest against farm murders and violence.

Public order police units from Bloemfontein, Bethlehem, Selosesha in Thaba Nchu, all in the Free State, and Gauteng have been deployed in Senekal.

A water cannon is on standby and police Nyalas were scheduled to barricade the court precinct with reams of barbed wire.

Earlier this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa said crime affected everyone and that the majority of victims were black and poor, with young black men and women at a greater risk of being murdered.

He said while anger at the senseless killing was justifiable, vigilantism was not.

“The brutal killing of a young white farmer, allegedly by black men, followed by the spectacle of white farmers storming a police station to get to a black suspect has opened up wounds that go back many generations,” Ramaphosa said.