Church feud or gangsters’ paradise?
The trouble with dynasty successions is that there is always a family member who gets left behind
Sixteen shotguns, five rifles, 13 pistols. That’s enough weaponry to begin a small war which, it now seems, was exactly the point of the raid carried out in the early hours of Saturday in Zuurbekom, on congregants of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) who happened to be asleep in the church.The attackers, allegedly dressed as policemen, rammed through the gate, shot dead four men in a car and set it alight and shot and killed a security guard who had arrived on the scene.The raiders then moved through the building, calling out the names of specific church elders they were looking for.A hostage drama followed when the real cops arrived, backed up by army units.The 40 attackers are now in police custody.The raid was another act in a leadership feud that began when the IPHC leader, Glayton Modise, also known as the "Comforter", died in 2016. Leadership passed to Glayton’s eldest son, Tshepiso Modise.Glayton himself had taken over the leadership of the 3-million-stron...
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