JOHANNESBURG Feb 7 (Reuters) – South African police
have arrested a suspected fraudster for impersonating the
award-winning traditional singer Khulekani Kwakhe “Mgqumeni”
Khumalo, who died in 2009.
The unnamed man, who appeared in court in the eastern
KwaZulu-Natal province on Tuesday, had said he had not died but
was kidnapped by a witchdoctor who cast a spell on him and
imprisoned him in a cave with zombies, local media reported.
Thousands of people in Khumalo’s rural eastern home village
of Esiggumeni, turned out to see the man at the weekend. Riot
police with truncheons and water cannons were deployed to keep
the crowd under control.
“I have always been alive,” he was quoted as telling the
crowd by the Independent Online news site. “I have lost a lot of
weight but it is me.”
Police said the suspect’s fingerprints do not match those of
the famed singer. The man also does not have the same scars on
his face as Khumalo had.
“Detectives conducting the enquiry were convinced that the
matter required criminal investigation,” police said in a
statement.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz)
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