The puppet masters behind the killers for hire must be found too
The cold-blooded murder of rap artist Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend, popular chef Tebello Motsoane, on the pavement outside Wish restaurant in Durban in February 2023, shocked the nation. Chilling video footage showed the killers walking up to Forbes and Motsoane, shooting them and then fleeing on foot to a getaway car. The brazenness of the killings and the cold manner in which they were carried out confirmed for all South Africans that we are living in a violent society in which a life is worth only as much as someone is willing to pay to end it.
Not surprisingly, given the track record of our law enforcement authorities, many believed that we would never get to know the truth about who carried out this heinous crime. And that who would benefit from Forbes being killed would remain a matter of conjecture and speculation.
This week, however, police minister Bheki Cele, in a late-night media briefing, brought some hope to a society accustomed to watching killers walk free for lack of evidence or because the police and the National Prosecuting Authority had botched the case.
To the police’s credit, the investigation into Forbes’ murder appears to have been meticulous, and several suspects have been arrested.
We await the unfolding of the court proceedings with anticipation and congratulate the police on their work so far.
Unfortunately, the arrest of the alleged perpetrators is only half the story. Already, AKA’s father, Tony Forbes, who was in court with Cele for the accused’s first appearance, has neatly captured the question that is on many people’s minds: will we ever get to know who ordered this hit, and why?
The portents are not good if several other high-profile assassination cases are anything to go by. Two come to mind: the murder of Bafana goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa in 2014 and the 2021 killing of Gauteng health department official Babita Deokaran outside her house after she exposed corruption involving tenders at Tembisa Hospital.
The Meyiwa case has become something of an enduring soap opera in our courts. The trial had to be restarted under a new judge and has since heard claims that Meyiwa’s girlfriend, the singer Kelly Khumalo, could be involved somehow — casting a shadow over her that, for all we know, may be entirely undeserved.
Until the police and courts establish beyond all reasonable doubt who, if anyone, was behind the killing, the public will be left with a sense of unease over what really transpired at the house in Vosloorus on that fateful afternoon.
The case of Deokaran is a clear case of an assassination. It seems to have been carried out to hide corruption. The fact that the five accused were able to reach a plea bargain and have been sentenced to long terms in jail leaves a sense that the truth will remain hidden, possibly forever.
In AKA’s case, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi articulated the thoughts of many when he pointed out that in some cases even unemployed suspects are somehow able to find expensive legal representation.
The suspicion on many South Africans’ minds is that killing for hire is being used to eliminate opponents so that the actual perpetrators’ identities — those who stand to benefit beyond the payout of a lucrative hit fee — will remain hidden.
No doubt it is difficult, if not impossible at times, to find the puppet masters, but it is an area of law that will have to be looked at more closely. In some cases, not all the perpetrators involved will know who paid for the hit and why.
This weak spot in our law can only be surmounted by diligent police work, using the best forensics and financial investigation resources.
We must not become a society that cannot discover who paid for an assassination even if those who did the dirty work are jailed. That would be a charade that makes a mockery of our justice system.