Three South Africans have been charged with murder following the killing of an e-hailing taxi driver, the manner of whose death, captured on dashcam footage, has shocked many people. The trio, who were arrested over the weekend, were in court in Pretoria on Monday and have since abandoned their bail applications. They were not asked to comment on the charges.
A fourth suspect later handed himself over to police on Monday. He will appear in court on Tuesday, police said in a brief update after Dikeledi Mphela, 24, Goitsione Machidi, 25 and McClaren Mushwana, 30 made a brief appearance. All four also face robbery charges.
Satlat, 22, was a Nigerian national but, in a country that has often been blighted by xenophobic violence, his family said the attack was not linked to his nationality. According to prosecutors, the accused ordered a ride on e-hailing platform Bolt last Wednesday using a number not registered in any of their names. When the car arrived, Mphela and the fourth suspect allegedly got into the car while Machidi and Mushwana followed them in a separate car, authorities added.
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They then “forced the deceased to stop the vehicle, strangled him to death and robbed him of his cell phone and vehicle which was later recovered”, the prosecuting authority’s spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said. There has been a growing number of reports of e-hailing drivers coming under attack in South Africa, with many drivers calling for greater protection, as the country grapples with high crime levels and one of the highest murder rates in the world.
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