Police have arrested five suspects they believe are linked to the New Year’s Day attacks in Melville and Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg.
Two people were killed and six others wounded in the drive-by shooting in Melville in the early hours of New Year’s Day. On the same day, 11 people sustained gunshot wounds in Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown.
In the video below, prayer service held for victims of Melville shooting:
National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole says the suspects are also believed to be linked to other extremist crimes in other provinces.
The suspects are foreign nationals and were arrested at Kliprivier near Vereeniging for the kidnapping of a 72-year-old man earlier on Thursday.
Police discovered multiple firearms and over 100 rounds of ammunition at a house used as a base for criminals.
“We uncovered that the same firearms that we find here. Some of them we have identified them in the videos of other crimes like the New Year’s Day attack and as well as extremism cases around KZN where there has been extremism and kidnapping. We further discovered that there is a transnational link to the crimes that are taking place here,” he says.
Sitole says they are still searching for the owner of the house and the kidnapped man.
