Demand for hitmen ‘on the up so cost goes down’

HITMEN have become cheaper as the demand for assassinations in all spheres – from business, to personal relationships – has increased.

At least this is according to research from the University of Cape Town, which concludes that hits are often used to resolve conflict in South Africa. Professor Mark Shaw and Kim Thomas have examined 1 000 cases in the past 16 years.

“Hits represent the application of targeted violence aimed at removing particular individuals and sending wider signals about power relations to promote a variety of political, economic or criminal interests,” reads an extract from their study.

“Such killings, and the availability of killers for hire, draw on several ‘nurseries of violence’ and they link to wider sets of criminal activity, such as in the taxi industry, in gangs and organised crime, in the private security industry, as well as within state agencies.”

The paper, titled The Commercialisation of Assassination: ‘Hits’ and Contract Killing in South Africa, 2000–2015, was published in the African Affairs Journal in September.

According to a press release issued by UCT the report said “many people are willing to do anything for money” and this cheapened the costs of hitmen – R10 000 could be enough to have someone killed.

The research comes amid a number of high-profile cases including the death of Port Elizabeth resident Jayde Panayiotou.

Her husband Christopher is accused of paying to have her murdered and he is currently on trial in the Port Elizabeth High Court.

The Dispatch has reported on a number of possible hit cases in the past year, including the widely publicised death of the chairman of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe.

The 53-year-old was shot outside his home by two unknown gunmen in March.

His death is widely believed to be linked to a decade of work with the committee on the Wild Coast in opposing open-cast titanium mining by the Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd (MCR). The companies denies any link to the killing.

Then there was the death by shooting of Zukile Nyontso, the bodyguard of OR Tambo ANC chair Xolile Nkompela, in December. Nkompela maintains he was the target and the hit was politically linked.

The Dispatch also reported on the slaying of Mhlontlo ANC councillor Zolile Malangeni, 54, and his wife, Thelma, in August at their home in Mayaluleni village. Malangeni was in the running as Mhlontlo mayor.

Two widows made headlines in separate cases this year when they were arrested in connection with hits on their husbands. One is Pauline Adams, arrested in February on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder after her husband Ronald, 52, was shot and killed in Alice in 2014.

The other is Noluthando Baleni, a primary school teacher, who has appeared in the Mthatha Magistrate’s Court several times this year to face charges related to the death of her deputy principal husband Kholisile Baleni. His body was found riddled with bullets inside his minibus in October 2015. She has two co-accused: her father, a widely respected church minister and a youth of 22.

On the political front, there have been more than 50 killings in the past five years linked to political rivalry.

Johan Burger, a senior researcher from the Institute for Security Studies, could not say if “targeted killings” were on the rise but he highlighted that it was common in the taxi industry.

He said there were also many hits which involved spouses or lovers. —