Petros Mamaru (24), who also goes by the names Piet Mosehla and Petros Mamawaru, escaped from the Belfast holding cells on Saturday shortly after 17:00.<\/p>\n
Mamaru escaped alongside Skumbuzo Mthethwa (21) who was arrested for theft, and Lucky Sibuyi (24) who was arrested for armed robbery.<\/p>\n
The three men made their escape through the roof of the exercise area of a cell they shared with another detainee, who they bound gagged and left behind.<\/p>\n
A torn cell blanket was used to restrain the cell-mate and the bound man was found squirming by police making their cell rounds.<\/p>\n
The station commander has already launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the escape.<\/p>\n
Mamaru was awaiting trial for the November 2011 knife murder of a shebeen patron in Laersdrift, as well as for the slaying of a farm worker stoned to death between Dullstroom and Belfast on 30 August this year.<\/p>\n
He was positively linked with the shebeen stabbing by DNA.<\/p>\n
On 30 August, Mamaru allegedly first attacked the farm worker with a bottle, stabbed him, and then stoned him to death.<\/p>\n
He was seen the very next day on the farm Elandskloof where the killing took place, by the deceased’s fellow labourers.<\/p>\n
It took the following 14 days to apprehend Mamaru who, fled after on-duty police officers failed to respond to the call.<\/p>\n
“The easy escape bears testimony to the incompetence of the police, and perhaps even uniformed member’s involvement with crime. Someone cannot possibly escape through a hole in a roof without the necessary tools,” Mr Ian Cameron, Afriforum’s head of community safety said in a warning alert to the area’s farming community.<\/p>\n
Apart from a fresh charge for escape, Mamaru will also stand trial for two rapes committed in the Roossenekal area recently.<\/p>\n
Mamaru, who is 24-years old, stands 1,86 metres tall in his socks, and has two missing front teeth, originally hails from Jane Furse.<\/p>\n
Police warn that Mamaru is dangerous and should not be confronted. Persons with information on where he might be hiding, should contact sergeant Willie de Waal on 083 331 9591.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Belfast police are on the hunt for a dangerous murder suspect linked to the murder of two men, and rape of two women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":19592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Gerhard Rheeder","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}