{"id":205180,"date":"2021-10-15T09:36:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T07:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/police-arrest-56-suspects-for-taking-cabinet-ministers-hostage\/"},"modified":"2021-10-15T09:36:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T07:36:42","slug":"police-arrest-56-suspects-for-taking-cabinet-ministers-hostage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/police-arrest-56-suspects-for-taking-cabinet-ministers-hostage\/","title":{"rendered":"Police arrest 56 suspects for taking Cabinet Ministers hostage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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About 56 suspects were arrested on Thursday in Centurion after they allegedly held hostage two Cabinet Ministers – Mondli Gungubele ([Presidency) and Thandi Modise (Defence and Military Veterans) and her Deputy Thabang Mokwetla.<\/p>\n

In a video posted on Twitter later in the evening, Gungubele confirmed the incident. According to reports, the incident occurred at the St Georges Hotel in Irene, Centurion.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe found ourselves in a situation which I consider untenable, legally unacceptable, where we thought we were in a meeting [which] its intention was to attend to matters that affect military veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could not agree on how the meeting should take place. We reached a point where I thought we were agreeing that it should adjourn.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Ministers attempted to leave the meeting venue, he said members of the military veterans\u2019 contingent closed the doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is at this point that we realised that we were being held hostage. It is a situation that was averted by the security forces, very effectively and successfully. We want to thank [Police] Minister Bheki Cele and all other security forces, whatever branch that was involved for the prompt and timeous intervention,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said they expected the law to take its cause “in dealing with the behaviour of this nature”.<\/p>\n

The intervention was on Thursday evening confirmed by the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NATJoints) in a statement.<\/p>\n

NATJoints spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said: \u201cThis evening police successfully rescued at least three hostages at a hotel in Centurion, Pretoria\u201d.<\/p>\n

The drama is said to have begun at 7:15pm when police received a report of a possible hostage situation in which two Cabinet Ministers and a Deputy Minister were allegedly taken hostage.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAfter attempts to negotiate with the hostage takers to release the hostages had failed, police resorted to a tactical approach and successfully rescued the hostages\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were no shots fired during the rescue.<\/p>\n

Naidoo said at least 56 people, including seven women, were arrested and were likely to face charges of at least three counts of kidnapping. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile processing the suspects, three of them have been taken for medical checks after they complained of pains,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 56 suspects were arrested on Thursday in Centurion after they allegedly held hostage two Cabinet Ministers – Mondli Gungubele ([Presidency) and Thandi Modise (Defence and Military Veterans) and her Deputy Thabang Mokwetla. In a video posted on Twitter later in the evening, Gungubele confirmed the incident. According to reports, the incident occurred at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-205180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/police-arrest-56-suspects-for-taking-cabinet-ministers-hostage.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}