JOHANNESBURG – A suspect in the killing of the captain and goalkeeper of South Africa’s national football team Senzo Meyiwa, has been arrested after witnesses picked him out in an identity parade, police said in a statement on Friday.
The police said Zanokuhle Mbatha, 25, had been charged in connection with the case on charges of murder.
Meyiwa was hit by a single gun shot to the chest on Sunday night while confronting two intruders at the home of his girlfriend, actress and singer Kelly Khumalo.
His death highlighted the phenomenon of gun violence in South Africa, coming just days after disabled track star Oscar Pistorius was jailed for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
The National Prosecuting Authority said Mbatha had made a brief appearance in the Boksburg Magistrate court east of Johannesburg and his case was adjourned until Nov. 11.
Last weekend’s Soweto derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates was postponed as a mark of respect for Meyiwa 27.
Meanwhile, South Africans wearing red or black soccer jerseys said farewell to Meyiwa at a packed stadium in the Indian Ocean city of Durban on Saturday.
The mood was in part somber, with red-eyed fans sobbing or blowing into tissues as a hearse carrying the 27-year-old’s flag-draped coffin drove around the stadium, and at times festive as they blew vuvuzela horns and sang soccer chants.
Meyiwa was shot and killed in what appeared to have been a botched robbery at his mistress’s house on Sunday night, which highlights the scourge of gun violence in Africa’s most advanced country.
“We’ve got every reason to be angry about Senzo,” Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula told the mourners. “Justice is grinding and we will find them. We will never rest until we find all of them.”