IS clues in kidnap hunt
● At first glance you don’t notice the Arabic inscription on the wall of a concrete outbuilding on a secluded hilltop in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
It is when you look closer at the ramshackle house in the Ngoye Forest Reserve, near Eshowe, that you get a sense of why the secret hideaway of alleged Islamic State acolytes Sayfydeen del Vecchio and his wife, Fatima Patel, has become the epicentre of an international terror probe.
It was there that Del Vecchio and Patel, and Del Vecchio’s two young daughters, had removed themselves from prying eyes, living off the grid with a field of vegetables to sustain them.
It was there that police and counter-terror agents were drawn in the search for kidnapped Cape Town botanists Rod and Rachel Saunders, Britons who have been living in South Africa for 40 years.
Police removed the IS flag, but other pointers to Del Vecchio and Patel’s dedication to radical Islam and sharia law remain. The Arabic inscription — Shariatu Rabbina Nurun — means “sharia is the lord of our light”, and is the opening line of a jihadi nasheed (song) inviting young followers into the caliphate.
Del Vecchio, Patel and their 19-year-old neighbour, Themba Xulu, are accused of kidnapping the Saunders couple, withdrawing more than R700 000 from their bank accounts and stealing their car while they were in Vryheid, in the north of the province.
With the money they are alleged to have amassed a cache of jewellery, camping gear and electronic equipment — what police sources have described as the trappings of a “training camp”.
In the days after the Saunders couple disappeared two weeks ago, their bloodied Land Cruiser was found dumped in a township near Durban, an ominous indication of what might have befallen them.
While the detained trio were appearing in the Verulam Magistrate’s Court under the guard of heavily armed policemen, the search and rescue operation to find the Saunders continued.
The prosecution team is poised to add more terror-related charges to the list already faced by Del Vecchio and Patel.
Both have been charged with flying the IS flag, and Del Vecchio is accused of participating in extremist web forums.
Patel’s alleged links to the terror group made headlines in 2016, when she was arrested with her brother Ebrahim, along with twins Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee Thulsie, accused of plotting attacks on foreign interests on South African soil.
Her 38-year-old husband also drew attention to himself and his affiliation to IS last year when he built a clandestine treehouse in a strip of forest in Umhlali owned by Tongaat Hulett.
People in the town’s urban improvement precinct, as well the community policing forum, had raised the alarm with authorities about “the man with the crossbow” after an IS flag was found there.
One person, who spoke to the Sunday Times on condition of anonymity, said a resident reported seeing the tree house and they were able to locate it using Google Maps and satellite imagery. She said the landowners took an inventory and tore the place down.
Del Vecchio has also been charged with malicious damage to property relating to the torching of a sugarcane field owned by Tongaat Hulett in September last year.
The trio are expected to return to court on Tuesday to apply for bail.