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.
A video shared widely on social media shows a man and a woman tussling with the driver, Isaac Satlat, who they appeared to be robbing. Satlat tries to fight back before one of the passengers appears to strangle him until he goes limp.
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 Mphala, 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, Mphala and the fourth suspect allegedly got into the car while Machidi and Mushwana followed them in a separate car, authorities added.
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 have been a growing number of reports of e-hailing drivers coming under attack in South Africa, with drivers calling for greater protection, as the country grapples with high crime levels and one of the highest murder rates in the world.
The e-hailing partners’ council condemned Satlat’s killing, adding that it was not an “isolated incident”.
The organisation praised the role that the dashcam footage and social media played in capturing his murder but reiterated calls for “preventative security measures” to better protect drivers.
It also called on e-hailing companies to “vet and verify passengers to prevent criminals masquerading as customers”.
Numerous political parties and e-hailing drivers gathered outside the court house on Monday to protest against Satlat’s murder.
One driver called for the government to set up a task team to deal with the attacks on them, according to local broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.
He also called for the establishment of a system to compensate the families of drivers killed on the job. Spokesperson for the Satlat family Solomon Izang Ashoms said his relatives were left with unanswered questions.
“His dad is struggling, we’re very afraid for [him] because his blood pressure’s been shooting up [since the death],” Ashoms said.
The case against the three was postponed to next Monday.
By BBC News
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