A Cape Town pastor, gunned down on the steps of a court, may have been silenced after preparing to turn State witness.
|||Cape Town - A Cape Town pastor, shot dead in cold blood on the steps of the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court where he was set to face abalone smuggling and drug-related charges, may have been silenced after preparing to turn State witness.
That was the word on Friday night from several inside sources after the shocked family of controversial gang pastor Albern Martins watched horrified as three men followed him up the court steps on Friday, and one shot him in the head.
Although the official word from provincial police spokesman Colonel Tembinkosi Kinana is that police are investigating, but have no leads, sources have revealed that the focus is on the possibility that the apparent hit was carried out by someone in the same gang as Martins.
Martins, his wife Minnie Martins and their son Andrew, also known as Alton, stand accused of possession of perlemoen worth millions of rand, along with Spencer Pietersen and convicted money launderer and alleged mandrax crime syndicate boss Kiyaam Rinquest.
One source even went so far as to suggest that the identity of the shooter was known.
On Friday night Alton Martins told Weekend Argus he saw three men emerge from the veld near the court on Friday morning. When he heard the gunshot, he realised his father had been hit.
“They stood next to him (Martins). From there I heard the gun go off. They shot my father through the head from behind,” he said, adding that the three escaped in the commotion that followed.
A witness described one of the assailants as a “young lad with slippers on”.
Martins’s family stood outside the court for more than an hour after the shooting. As the body was finally removed, Alton Martins tried to comfort his mother and sister Michelle.
Blood from her husband’s body was smeared across Minnie Martins’s polka dot dress.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said later that the four were charged with racketeering, dealing in drugs, possession of abalone, and fraud.
The case has dragged on for more than eight years.
In 2008, a State witness claimed Pietersen told him there was “trouble” between the pastor and Rinquest, and that Martins had also started dealing with Americans gang boss Mogammat Sadeka Madatt.
According to the witness Martins was involved in a double-cross operation.
Martins, once an acknowledged member of the 28s gang, earned his reputation as a “gang pastor” by overseeing more than 200 gang funerals. The list includes Firm leader Colin Stanfield, Americans kingpin Jackie Lonte, Mongrels boss Bobby Mongrel, and Belhar 28s leader Ernie “LaPepa” Peters.
In recent times he emerged as a key member of Safety and Security MEC Dan Plato’s gang outreach programme, in which reformed gangsters were used to intervene in gang turf wars.
Gang leaders were quick to respond to the news yesterday, with alleged Americans gang leader Igshaan “Sanie American” Davids saying he and Martins had been good friends.
“He was a good man and he had no enemies. Yes, he was a crook. But despite that, he is a man who always came in peace.”
Christopher “Ougat” Patterson, suspected leader of the Wonder Kids gang, said he had known the pastor for nearly 30 years.
“He is a man who sat in everyone’s yard. He never favoured one gang above the other. How can you shoot dead the pastor? When Pagad wanted to take us out, he stood up for us. He helped everybody, including myself,” he said.
A Hard Livings gang member, who is a close friend of alleged gang leader Rashied Staggie, expressed shock: “During the days of Pagad he openly supported us.”
He continued: “A big man like him coming to his end in that way... Life is cruel. The government wasn’t always happy with him. But now it seems he was shot dead by a gangster.”
Community Safety MEC Dan Plato also expressed shock, calling on police to apprehend the killers immediately. “I am shocked by his death, as (I am by) any death caused by violence – even more so because I knew him personally,” he said.
In 1990, Martins was key, along with Ivan Waldeck, in forming the now defunct Community Outreach Forum, or Core, which tried to bring peace to violence-stricken areas.
Waldeck, who was also at the court when his friend was shot, told Weekend Argus: “This is a sad day for me. I’m giving up one of my mentors. I see him lying there on the ground and I see a symbol of his life. It is evil, it is unacceptable.”
Quinton Manuel, a friend of Martins who ordained Martins’s son Alton last Sunday, suggested Martins had been preparing to hand over his church duties.
“It’s as if he prepared himself for what was going to happen today,” he said.
Weekend Argus