South Africa: Four in court over gay club owner’s death
Four men are due to appear in Cape Town Magistrate’s Court today following after the owner of a gay nightclub was found dead.
Bruno Bronn, 50 owned the Bronx club in Cape Town. He was found dead last Tuesday morning with his hands tied with tape in front of him.
A 36-year-old man was arrested on Saturday. Two more arrests of men aged 29 and 35 followed, the South African Press Association reports.
A BMW stolen from Bronn was found in Milnerton, a suburb of Cape Town. A fourth man was arrested on Sunday but no further details have yet been released.
All four men were charged with murder.
In October of last year, police in Johannesburg said there was no evidence a serial killer was targeting gay men after a series of deaths.
According to the Star newspaper, there have been six killings of gay men over the last 18 months which bear similarities.
The paper reported that five of the six victims were found bound and strangled in a private home with no sign of a break-in. One was found strangled and battered to death.
The Cape Town arrests come soon after four men received 18-year prison sentences for the murder of gay teenager Zoliswa Nkonyana, six years after her death.
Nkonyana, 19, was stabbed and stoned in the homophobic attack in Khayelitsha on 4 February 2006.
A total of nine men had been arrested, but Lubabalo Ntlabathi, Sicelo Mase, Luyanda Londzi and Mbulelo Damba were found guilty of the murder in October 2011. That case was reportedly postponed more than 50 times.
