{"id":64004,"date":"2014-11-11T11:45:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T11:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=64004"},"modified":"2014-11-11T11:45:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T11:45:24","slug":"sa-footballer-killer-suspect-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=64004","title":{"rendered":"SA footballer killer suspect freed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\" secondary-story-header\">A South African court has withdrawn murder charges against a man arrested in connection with the killing of national football captain Senzo Meyiwa.<\/p>\n<p>Zanokuhle Mbatha was arrested by a special police task team last month after a nationwide manhunt.<\/p>\n<p>The magistrate ordered that he be released because that there was not enough evidence for him to stand trial.<\/p>\n<p>Meyiwa was killed in a robbery at his girlfriend&#8217;s home in the township of Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>Two men allegedly entered Kelly Khumalo&#8217;s home on 26 October and demanded mobile phones before shooting Meyiwa during a scuffle.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/78590000\/png\/_78590399_suspects.png\" alt=\"Composite images of the suspects in the shooting of Senzo Meyiwa\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">The police issued images of those suspected of involvement in the killing<\/div>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says the goalkeeper&#8217;s death caused a nationwide outcry with calls for stricter gun laws in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The day after the attack, police offered a reward of $23,000 (\u00a314,000) for information about it and released images of two men suspected of killing Meyiwa, who also played for Soweto team Orlando Pirates.<\/p>\n<p>Police placed a barricade of barbed wire around the court in Boksburg to help manage crowds ahead of Tuesday&#8217;s hearing and checked all cars entering the vicinity, reports South Africa&#8217;s Eyewitness News.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr Mbatha, 25, also from Vosloorus, was not present in court.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From the submissions made by prosecutor Getrude Market, the court has accepted that as of now there is not sufficient evidence to put Mr Mbatha to trial,&#8221; Magistrate Daniel Thulare Thulare said.<\/p>\n<p>Tens of thousands of football fans attended the funeral for Meyiwa in Durban earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A South African court has withdrawn murder charges against a man arrested in connection with the killing of national football captain Senzo Meyiwa. Zanokuhle Mbatha was arrested by a special police task team last month after a nationwide manhunt. The magistrate ordered that he be released because that there was not enough evidence for him [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":64007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-64004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}