Two more held over torched trucks, bringing total to five

Police are confident they are closing in on the ringleaders behind the torching of trucks on SA roads.

This is according to Brig Athlenda Mathe, who said two more suspects have been arrested, bringing the total to five. All five arrests were made in Mpumalanga. 

Police minister Bheki Cele said last week that 12 people had been identified as suspects/people of interest by officers investigating what has been described as co-ordinated attacks on freight trucks.

At least 21 trucks have been torched in KwaZulu-Natal‚ Limpopo and Mpumalanga this month in what has been described as co-ordinated attacks. Cele said evidence pointed to “organised co-ordinated and sophisticated operations that seek to undermine and sabotage the state”.

City Press reported over the weekend that a confidential crime intelligence report seen by the publication suggested an organisation of truckers sympathetic to former president Jacob Zuma and the so-called Operation Dudula, were the instigators of the attacks on trucks.

Last week it emerged that Zuma had travelled to Russia seeking medical care at the same time as the Constitutional Court dismissed the department of correctional services’ application for leave to appeal against a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that Zuma should return to prison to finish his 15-month sentence for contempt of court handed down in 2021.

In July 2021 Zuma’s arrest and brief imprisonment triggered the worst postapartheid violence in SA when widespread unrest broke out in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng.