3rd arrest for xenophobic killing

Johannesburg - A third man has been arrested for the killing of Siphiwe Madondo, in Alexandra, in May 2008, at the start of a wave of xenophobic attacks throughout the country, police said on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old man was in custody at the Alexandra police station and would appear in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court as soon as he had been charged, said Constable Neria Malefetse.

She said two 30-year-old men were arrested in connection with the case on January 26.

They appeared in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court two days later and remained in custody at the Johannesburg Prison pending their next court appearance.

Madondo died on the night of May 11, 2008, said Malefetse.

That afternoon, Alexandra residents had met to discuss crime, after the rape of four women and a young girl, and stabbing and robbing of several men in the preceding weeks, The Times reported after the incident.

They left the meeting angry at foreigners' "theft" of their jobs and houses.

Kick out the foreigners

Intent on evicting them from the neighbourhood, they returned that night with guns, steel bars and whips and marched on the foreigners' shacks chanting "kick out the foreigners", the newspaper reported.

Madondo, 41, was outside with his wife Pretty Ndzimbovu trying to see what was going on.

The crowd tried to convince him to join them and "kill foreigners", but when he refused, he was shot in the stomach and chest, the Times wrote.

Malefetse gave a different version of events, claiming Madondo left the home he shared with Ndzimbovu at 23:00 to get drinks, but returned a little while later to tell her he had been shot.

He collapsed and died while en route to a clinic for treatment.

Madondo was one of the first people killed in the attacks which claimed at least 62 lives, left hundreds injured and tens of thousands of foreign nationals displaced.

- SAPA