A private security guard company suspects the murder of two of its officers was a revenge killing after to alleged robbers were killed in May.
|||Durban - A private security guard company suspects the murders of two of its officers were revenge killings.
This comes after Afri Security Guard officers Zakhele Mthombeni, 31, and Lucky Jali, 27, were both found shot in the head and back.
The two railway guards, whose company provides security services for the main line from Mount Vernon to Cato Ridge, were ambushed in a house last Sunday.
They had been renting the one-room house to change in before going out to patrol the lines in Mandela Park, near Mariannhill.
Police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said they were shot before 7pm.
Their supervisor, Manqoba Masondo, said he had been notified of the killings by one of Afri’s employees who lived in the area. “He had heard the shots and rushed down to investigate. Jali was already dead. Mthombeni was struggling to breathe and died a short while after.” Their firearms had been taken.
Afri regional manager, Sifiso Mzobe, said be believed the murders and robbery may have been linked to the fatal shooting of two alleged robbers by his guards near the Dassenhoek train station in May.
Masondo said four men had approached two different security guards and tried to steal their firearms.
“Our guys managed to shoot two suspects dead and the others got away.”
This was confirmed by Naicker. “The suspect (one of the deceased) was found in possession of a shotgun with 12 live rounds of ammunition,” he said.
Mariannhill police are also investigating a case of attempted murder, it was learned, after one of the guards was shot in the thigh.
Mthombeni’s mother, Phikili Sibiya, said she had always been scared of the firearm.
“I would always tell him to hide it,” she said.
Speaking to the Daily News on Thursday, she said she had last seen him just hours before he left for work. He left the uMlazi house they shared, saying he would see her in the morning.
The devastated mother said the death of her eldest son had left a huge gap in her heart and her mind and also left her with unanswered questions.
“Not knowing what actually happened is so painful, but I don’t think I really want to know. This hurt is enough,” she said.
The family travelled more than four hours from their homestead in Ingwavuma to fetch their son’s body. They also visited the house where he was killed to “collect his spirit” with a branch from a umPhafa or buffalo thorn tree.
“He had just started paying lobola for a makoti (bride), and building a house,” she said. Sibiya is concerned about Mthombeni’s five children, aged from 2 to 12.
She said she did not know how she would provide for them on the money she made selling traditional medicine.
Jali’s family could not be contacted for comment.
Daily News