Byline: Kelebogile Masemola
22 July 2022
Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) have arrested a traditional healer and his two accomplices who were caught digging up graves in Mabopane.
The TMPD said officers received a complaint last Friday, 15 July 2022, from security guards who were on night shift duty at a graveyard about people digging up graves.
Police arrived to find three men inside a grave which was being dug up.
The three men could not answer what they were digging the graves up for, and didn’t produce any permission to exhume the grave.
In a statement by the TMPD, the suspects tried to bribe officers with R1 500.
It is believed the sangoma wanted the skeletal remains for traditional medicine or muti.
“Among the three suspects was a sangoma.
They were allegedly looking for dead people’s bones for muti purposes.
The suspects tried to offer a bribe of R1 500.
They were then arrested for violation of graveyard regulations, malicious damage to property and bribery.”
