Overview
- The Johannesburg High Court is set to deliver a judgment in the case against Sthembiso Mdlalose, the man accused of setting the Usindiso building on fire that killed 76 people.
- Prosecutors say the blaze occurred in a five-storey hijacked building in Marshalltown where many residents were sleeping when the fire spread; the official death toll stands at 76.
- Mdlalose initially testified that he started the fire while trying to burn the body of a man he said he had killed and later recanted, saying he was under the influence of drugs and coerced by an unnamed Tanzanian drug lord to confess.
- Judgment was delayed earlier when investigators found inconsistencies in victims’ post-mortem reports, a forensic issue that court sources say could affect determinations of cause and culpability.
- Police continue separate probes of related violence in the Western Cape, including the arrest of a 23-year-old in the Mossel Bay stabbing of teenager Nhlamulo Sambo that police say does not appear linked directly to anti-immigrant unrest, and a taxi-related shooting in Hazeldene that left four men dead and prompted SANTACO to demand a swift investigation; the unrest has also left more than 50 shacks destroyed and hundreds displaced.