Staff reporter
Bloemfontein – Today, 17 July 2025, will mark the 3rd year since the murder of Moeketsi Ariel Selemela.
Moeketsi was murdered after he was lured to his home which he had abandoned as he was going through a divorce with his estranged wife.
Reportedly, his assailants ambushed his estranged wife whom they then asked to call Moeketsi over under the pretext that their infant daughter was sick.
The loving and responsible father he was, he dropped everything and went there running only to find gunmen waiting for him.
Moeketsi was then badly assaulted before he was bundled into his car, got shot, his lifeless body and car abandoned on the N1. Except for his cellphone, nothing was stolen or taken,including a relatively new double cab bakkie he owned.
Three years later, nothing has become of this murder as the charges were withdrawn against the three suspects who were arrested after Selemela’s murder, one of them his estranged wife Tebatso Selemela, Thabiso Lemphane and Lehlohonolo Karai. Lemphane was allegedly closely connected to Tebatso through his sister.
What this case sheds light on, is how many murder cases go cold in the Free State, especially in Bloemfontein which is fast becoming the killing fields of South Africa.
About nineteen years ago Thaki Laban Nkete was killed and the case went cold, in 2011, Kenneth Makhetha a Sesotho Subject Advisor with FSDoE was also murdered and the case went cold without any arrests, some two weeks ago, Vakele Yona a Deputy Director in the Office of the Premier was shot and killed, we hope that arrests would be made shortly, but history tells you something else.
What these stories tells you is that, in the Free State, with the lamest plan ever hatched, anyone can get killed here and the murderers are sure as hell that they won’t get caught. This places so many people at risk here.
Surely, many people in the Free State will recall Noby Ngombane who was killed more than two decades ago and no arrests made.
If one brings the case of Machaka Gadebe who was killed two years ago into the picture, and whose mother died about two weeks ago, it truly looks like we are all exposed as targets ready to be taken out by anyone.
It is a very pathetic thing happening in Bloemfontein and one wonders whether this suggests that we have no investigative or prosecutorial capacity in Bloemfontein and the Free State.
Here, politicians, business owners, partners, government officials get killed at will.
While all this happens, according to Lt-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, KZN’s Provincial Police Commissioner our law enforcement agencies are busy cajoling criminals!
All this tells you that no one is safe in Bloemfontein.
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This should be stopped,this is enough
We can’t live in fear in our country because of criminals.Let us stand together as citizens to fight this
I pray that SA, esp FS province , is restored back to a safe place we dwell in. I believe this can only happen if we as citizens wake up to realize that with the present administration, the present President, that can never happen. Infact it’s going to become worse. Power lies within our hands with our votes.
Let’s wake up and vote for change and our safety.
This must come to an end. Let’s unite as the nation to fight these criminals
It is sad that 3 guys (brothers) who were initially said to have killed my brother, Tsiu “Thaki” Laban Nkete, the court said no evidence on the case. The same gun they used to kill Thaki is same gun they used to kill other people. But no evidence as they said on Thaki’s case. The courts are failing us.