Alleged Witness D’s killer is highly trained shooter, has ‘lethal’ skills

Target shooting, military-style training and trips to overseas shooting training competitions.

This is how Matipandile Sotheni, 42, the man accused of murdering Marius van der Merwe, identified as Witness D at the Madlanga commission inquiry, lived his life on social media, where he regularly posed with a variety of guns at shooting ranges.

In one of the videos on Instagram, Sotheni is heard psyching himself up as he places an egg, a lemon and bottled water on sticks before accurately shooting them from 100 metres away.

It is his “lethal” skills that police believe helped him take the life of Witness D, who was shot outside his home in Brakpan, Ekurhuleni, in December, after he had testified at the commission and implicated Ekurhuleni metro cops and police officers in a murder cover-up.

He is highly trained, and they knew that if they hired him, he would do a clean job.

—  Brig Athlenda Mathe

Police believe he was hired as a hitman by those who were allegedly threatened by Van der Merwe’s testimony at the Madlanga commission.

“If you look into his background in the police services, he was a marksman; he is close to a sniper because of his skills. He is highly trained and they knew that if they hired him, he would do a clean job,” said police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe outside the Brakpan magistrate’s court, where Sotheni appeared on a charge of murder, three charges of attempted murder and possession of unlawful ammunition.

“According to our investigation, the gunman who shot Witness D shot him from a [moving] car and that can only be possible if you have a highly trained gunman to do so. He shot two shots and Witness D was killed by one shot,” Mathe said.

Sotheni joined the police in 2005 as a warrant officer and joined the Special Task Force five years later.

In 2016, he filed a lawsuit against the police ministry to claim more than R150,000 in back payment of a scarce skills allowance, but resigned months before he lost the civil case in 2020.

Mathe said the police believe that Witness D’s execution was a side job that Sotheni was hired to carry out because of his shooting skills. At the time, he was employed as a security guard for a wealthy Houghton family.

On his Instagram, Sotheni has several pictures of himself at a training camp where he claims he had to eat wild animals, including snakes, to survive for eight weeks. He has also visited Dubai to attend a competition for elite officers.

Mathe said the state would have spent more than R1m to train a single officer of Sotheni’s calibre.

The state case will be built on tracker records, call data analysis and witness statements, among other things.

At a media briefing on Sunday, police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola indicated another suspect was still being sought.

“The investigation is continuing. One will not, at this stage, be able to say if there will be more arrests, but I am aware of the suspect. We are still hunting them and the investigation will, as time goes on, indicate what more is there,” he said.

Mathe further revealed that the late Wiandre Pretorius, who died after shooting himself in February, drove Sotheni on the day Witness D was killed.

She said the police have obtained warrants to search several properties where Sotheni could have hidden the gun that killed Witness D.

Sotheni’s case has been postponed to March 25 for a bail application.