This as the State Prosecutor, Johan de Vries, today told the court that a high-risk matter around this case has become known, which forced the Technical Response Team (TRT) members’ help to be called in. De Vries also told the court that a murder weapon that was used to carry out the shooting was found in Lesotho and arrangements are being made to return the weapon to the country so it could be presented as evidence in court. 

Five suspects, including a 20-year-old woman and mother of two, on Friday 14 February 2020 appeared at the city’s Magistrate's Court on a charge of murder and accessory to murder. The date for the trial in the High Court was set for 27 March. 

It is alleged that the three deceased were killed after they allegedly stole equipment from a road construction project in the area. Five suspects are facing murder charges and they are all in custody after abandoning their bail application in 2019. The suspects include Lebusa Makhotla, Koebu Motsapi, Seipati Ramatisa, Molefi Chele and Jabulani Machoto. 

Four of these suspects, excluding the 20-year-old mother of two, Ramatisa, are alleged to have shot two DA members, Molokwane Mokgoro and Godfrey Mbalula, and one Lesotho national execution-style in Dinaweng in 2019. 

Their bodies were found in an open field next to a construction site in Caleb Motshabi in late July last year. Mokgoro and the foreign national was declared dead on the scene, while Mbalula was rushed to the Pelonomi Hospital where he later died due to wounds sustained. Ramatisa, who is the girlfriend of Machoto, is accused of tampering with material evidence with the hopes of destroying it in favour of her boyfriend. De Vries, in 2019 during the bail hearing, maintained that the case was a matter that should be trialled at the High Court. 

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