One of the men accused and later acquitted of the murder of Brendin Horner has filed a wrongful arrest and prosecution case in the Bloemfontein high court.
He wants the police and NPA to pay R6m in damages.
In 2021, Sekola Matlaletsa and co-accused Sekwetje Mahlamba were cleared of murder charges. The Horner murder became national news after farmers in the area stormed the court as the accused made their first court appearance in October 2020.
Horner’s body was found tied to a farm gate. He had suffered injuries to his head and face, and a rope had been used to tie his neck to the pole on the gate. Police found a knife at the scene.
Racial tensions in the farming town had simmered after the EFF organised a march.
More than a year after the court cleared the two men, they have criticised the police for how the case was handled.
Speaking to TimesLIVE Premium, Matlaletsa’s lawyer said they had filed their damages claim.
“What we are claiming for is unlawful arrest, emotional shock, humiliation and loss of dignity,” Machini Motloung told TimesLIVE Premium.
Motloung said Mahlamba was being represented by a separate lawyer working on a separate claim.
In November 2021, TimesLIVE video visited Sekola Matlaletsa’s small corrugated iron home in Fateng-Tse-Ntsho.
He explained how he was arrested for Horner’s murder in October 2020.
“I was seated at the tavern, alongside the passage leading to the main room when the police arrived carrying what looked like R4 or R5 rifles. They ordered all of us out, we went out, but I came back to collect the beer I had been drinking,” Matlaletsa explains.
Shortly after he had exited the tavern doors for the second time, Matlaletsa found himself in handcuffs and heard police singling him out as a suspect in the killing of local farmer Brendin Horner, who was found dead in the neighbouring farming village of Paul Roux earlier in the month.
During the days and weeks that followed, a narrative linking the killing to instances of stock theft began to form.
On November 19 2021, a trial riddled with inconsistency and falsehoods came to an end, with Mahlamba and Matlaletsa found not guilty by the court.
Judge Cagney Musi said the court could not rely on the evidence of several witnesses. He also raised concerns about police evidence which suggested a conspiracy to convict Mahlamba and Matlaletsa.
“I feel very bitter about being implicated in a crime I know nothing of. My disability grant was cut off during the incarceration process. My children have been affected at school,” Matlaletsa says.
“The state or white people responsible for spreading false information that I killed Brendin Horner need to cleanse my name. They must pay for the damages my children and I have suffered,” he adds.
During the trial, the state relied on the testimony of Boy Khambule, who had seen the suspects in the days after the murder. According to Khambule, he gave his initial statement to police, who returned after seven months to carry out follow-up questioning in line with other gathered information.
“Seven months later when Myburgh arrived back he said the statement must conform with the picture that the accused had killed the deceased. It must implicate them in the murder. That’s when I realised that fraud is being committed,” he says.
During the high court proceedings, Khambule explicitly told the courtroom that the statement read out by police was not his.
I feel very bitter about being implicated in a crime I know nothing of.
— Sekola Matlaletsa
“They were not the same. The statement I presented to the court and the one that was read out were two different statements,” he said.
Khambule, who is disabled, says he is struggling to find employers in the area who would overlook his role in the case.
According to 17-year community policing forum veteran Johnny Maseko, inefficiency in the police force became more apparent as the case carried on.
“Police insisted, and they had a perfect political parrot in Bheki Cele. They made him mimic falsehoods, they made him divert the nation's attention from core issues of police inefficiency, ineptitude and incompetence,” he said.
The state will have to answer to their failings as the lawyers of the accused push their lawsuits against the parties involved.
— Additional reporting Dianne Hawker
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