Matipandile Sotheni, 41, who is charged with murdering Marius van der Merwe, who was known as “witness D” in the Madlanga Commission, appeared for the first time at the Brakpan Magistrate’s Court on Monday morning.
The court was full of relatives of the deceased, heavily armed police and journalists. Inside the court there was chaos since the names of the accused were confirmed, he was charged, and then a date was set to apply for bail.
It came out today that Sotheni was a sharp policeman working under the Task Force, he left the army to work for the family of citations – he stayed in Houghton, where they were famous.
Brigadier Athlenda Mathe revealed that their investigation revealed that Sotheni was the one who shot and killed Van der Merwe who was shot and killed outside his home in Brakpan on December 5 shortly after giving shocking evidence of corruption and the alleged cover-up of the killing by the Ekurhuleni Municipal Police (EMPD).
Mathe also revealed that the car they were traveling in on the day of the incident, a Suzuku, belonged to Sotheni’s girlfriend, and was driven byWiandre Pretorius.
“According to our investigation, the shooter who shot Witness D shot him in the car and that can only happen if he has a highly trained gunman to do so. He shot twice and Witness D was killed with one shot. Our investigation also tells us that Wiandre Pretorius was the driver of the car,” he said.
Pretorius, took his own life on February 7 with his girlfriend at a petrol station in Brakpan, Gauteng. This happened a few days after he survived the alleged incident when he entered his home in Boksburg.