INLSA
Corrie Sanders, the former world heavyweight boxing champion who was killed in a armed robbery on Saturday in Brits in the North West.
‘Shoot the big one, shoot the big one.” The “big one” was Corrie Sanders, and moments after the armed robber uttered those words, the former world heavyweight boxing champion lay dying after being shot in the stomach.
Yesterday, the Sanders family were trying understand why the robbers had shot the |46-year-old father as he lay defenceless on the floor, his arm around his daughter.
Sanders’s final acts on Saturday evening, said his family, were to protect his children, not just from armed criminals but from the trauma of seeing their father dying.
When the robbers burst into the Thatch Haven Country Lodge near Brits, he took his 15-year-old daughter Marinique by the wrist and got her to lie down on the floor next to him.
He then told her to play dead as three of the robbers fired shots into the floor next to the heads of some of the patrons and threatened them with knives.
One of those bullets stuck Sanders in the arm, before piercing his side and entering his abdomen, said his ex-wife, Sunette. She had heard one of the robbers shout, “Shoot the big one.”
Later, as paramedics were about to take him to Kalafong hospital, Sanders’s final words to Sunette were not to take the children to hospital, as he did not want to distress them.
“He was in a lot of pain. He said, ‘Bring them to the hospital tomorrow,’” said Sunette.
Sanders died hours later.
“He was protecting her and they shot him. Why they shot him, no one knows. Maybe it was because he was the closest to them,” said Sunette.
Yesterday, provincial police spokesman Brigadier Thulani Ngubane said police were searching for the four armed robbers.
Sanders’s brother Mike said the former boxer had been standing with his daughter at the entrance to the boma when the armed robbers appeared.
The family had gathered to celebrate the 21st birthday of Sanders’ nephew.
“I believe that they shot Corrie as he lay on the ground,” said Mike.
He said three of the robbers had walked among the guests, shooting in the air and firing into the floor; some of the bullets had struck just centimetres from the heads of some of the patrons.
They stole cellphones, handbags and wallets.
One of the guests had kicked his cellphone under the table, said Mike.
“When they searched him and didn’t find anything, one of them said: ‘Shoot him if he doesn’t have anything.’ He didn’t shoot him, they kicked him,” said Mike. They also threatened to shoot Sanders’s parents.
Another guest ended up with shrapnel wounds to his leg from bullet fragments.
Mike said he believed that at least 30 shots had been fired.
