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'Rattray was assassinated'
30/04/2007 22:28 - (SA)
Pieter Malan, Beeld
London - David Rattray, Anglo-Zulu war expert and Prince Charles's friend, did not die because of a robbery-gone-wrong, said The Sunday Times Magazine in London at the weekend.
The magazine claims he was assassinated because of a land dispute.
Under the heading "In cold blood at Rorke's Drift", the article said there was a growing feeling that the murder was anything but a "senseless killing".
Instead, there seemed to have been a terrifying logic behind it. Stephen Robinson, the reporter, said there was no circumstantial evidence to support the version of the police and Rattray's wife, Nicky, that it was a robbery and nothing more.
Went back and fired second shot
The magazine pointed out that, although six armed men took part in the robbery three months ago, only one man, Thembinkosi Ndlovu, actually entered the house.
After the fatal shot had been fired the man who was later identified as the leader of the group, Fethe Sibusiso Nkwanyana, asked Ndlovu if he was sure that Rattray was dead.
Ndlovu went back to the bedroom, and fired another shot at the lifeless body, according to the magazine.
There were five men waiting outside and they did not steal anything.
Two cellphones, Nicky's handbag full of cash and her husband's camera bag that was lying open, were not touched.
Nkwanyana was allegedly a highly skilled criminal, said to have been involved in a robbery at the Rorke's Drift visitor's centre in which staff were held at gunpoint while robbers took R11 700 from a safe.
In that robbery, police did not take fingerprints and he was never caught.
The magazine said Rattray was not easy to get on with, and had clashed several times with people in the area, especially his Zulu neighbours - among other things, because he had forbidden some to hunt in the area.
Two weeks before his death, a thorn tree barrier had been placed in the road to Fugitive's Drift, the hotel founded by Rattray. The article said it was a Zulu symbol of death, and a note attached to the branch read: "The one who removes these branches will not live long."
10 farmers have died
Robinson reported that a claim had been made against Rattray's land, and it quoted a local farmer, Herman de Wet, who said that land reform had turned the existing land order upside down.
"If they (the local Zulus) hear that a land claim is being opposed, they kill the farmer," De Wet is reported to have said. Ten farmers have died in the area since 1994.
"Against this background, it's extremely dangerous to get into a land dispute with a Zulu," wrote Robinson.
Nicky Rattray did not want to speak to the Sunday Times Magazine about her husband's death.
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