The harrowing truths of the Anele Hoyana killing
MALIBONGWE DAYIMANI and BONGANI FUZILE
From the moment the first shocking videos of a wild-eyed Fritz Joubert emerged, we knew this was going to be an important story.
A man claiming to be the “chosen one” who went on to bludgeon a sangoma to death before being shot dead by police beggared belief, but statements from police and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate appeared to corroborate these shocking events.
Ordinarily Sundays are slow news days, but not so on this particular Sunday.
It was the footage posted to social media that ensured widespread public attention and we were bombarded by people contacting us about the crime.
Watching the videos of Anele Hoyana’s final moments in the company of his killer was chilling and surreal, but to inform our readers we had to begin building a profile of Joubert.
It helped that the Dispatch had dealt with him before. In past years we had visited his farm to cover a long-standing dispute he had with his former neighbour, so we knew the area and Joubert’s overbearing personality to some extent.
That said, the images of Joubert swearing and brandishing a rifle over Hoyana’s body, the dead man’s fiancée crying out his name in the background, placed this person in an altogether different context.
Having carried an item about the killing online on Sunday, we published a comprehensive article in Monday’s newspaper, providing readers with initial information about what had happened that fateful weekend.
What was essential now was to attempt to explain what led to such a heinous crime and this is what crime reporter Malibongwe Dayimani vigorously set about doing.
Because Joubert was white and Hoyana black, many people concluded racism was at the heart of the atrocities.
Speaking to experts in the fields of traditional healing and psychology, it became clear Joubert may have been suffering from mental illness, rampant substance abuse, or both.
Many of those who knew him seemed to back up these analyses, telling us his predilection for violence and narcotics knew no bounds or skin colour.
Several readers were unhappy we did not simply ascribe the murder to racism; others felt we should not be giving prominence to the story as this worsened racial tensions.
Some thought that Joubert had lived on and owned a smallholding did not make it right to term him a farmer.
Meanwhile a large number of readers avidly followed the story, not just in the newspaper but online.
Dispatch reporters and editors shook their heads in disbelief as each new piece of information came to light, but when our photographer Michael Pinyana informed us members of the EFF were planning to occupy Joubert’s property, we wondered how many more twists there would be in this tragic saga.
We once more sent a team out to Joubert’s farm, Vegas#Transky.
About 30 EFF members were indeed dancing and singing around the house as a show of force against racism and the brutality that had occurred there.
A question on many people’s minds was who had filmed Joubert terrorising Hoyana and why that person had not attempted to stop him.
Scrutinising the videos, we picked up on Joubert referring to someone as “Sabelo”.
Hoyana’s brother, Olwethu, directed us to Sabelo Ngaka, who confirmed he had been the man behind the camera and granted us an interview.
Named and anonymous sources detailed Joubert’s history of violence and aspects of his background.
We established that, at the time of his death, Joubert was on trial in Bloemfontein, where he was facing charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances.
After hours we trawled East London’s pubs where managers told us he had been banned for life for beating up patrons.
There has been some criticism that our extensive online and print reports were “glorifying” Joubert, or, on the other hand, demonising him.
The debate including whether social media footage posted by killers should remain in circulation is worth entertaining though not easily resolved.
We believe scrutinising the dark corners of Joubert’s life was justified, partly because this may help someone in future identify the warning signs of murderous intent, but mostly because our job as journalists is to hunt for the causes of events of interest to the public.