By Police in South Africa have arrested a man who claimed responsibility for starting a fire that killed 76 people last year, after he said he ignited the blaze while trying to dispose of the body of a man he had strangled.
The shocking and unexpected confession came when the man was testifying at an inquiry into the causes of the fire in August at an apartment building in downtown Johannesburg, which was one of South Africa’s worst disasters.
The man, whose identity was not disclosed, had said at the inquiry that he had killed another man on the night of the fire by beating him and strangling him, according to South African media reports of the testimony.
He said he then poured gasoline on the man’s body and set it alight with a match, according to the reports.
He testified that he was a drug user and was told to kill the man by a drug dealer who lived in the building.
Police said later they had arrested a 29-year-old man after he had confessed to being involved in the fire at the inquiry. The man, who was not named, was facing 76 counts of murder, 120 counts of attempted murder, and a charge of arson, police said in a statement.
The inquiry he was testifying at was established to look into the possible causes of the fire. The panel in charge of the inquiry ordered that he not be identified after his testimony, and a lawyer leading the questioning of witnesses said that it could not be used against him, because it was not a criminal proceeding.
South African media referred to him as “Mr X” when reporting on his claim that he believed he caused the fire that ripped through the dilapidated five-storey building in downtown Johannesburg, killing dozens, including at least 12 children. More than 80 people were injured in the night-time blaze.
South African police said the man would appear in court soon, but did not give a date.
The fire drew the world’s attention to downtown Johannesburg’s long-running problem with “hijacked buildings,” structures that have become rundown and taken over by squatters and are abandoned by authorities. There are hundreds of them in the old centre of the city, officials say.
The city of Johannesburg owned the building, but it had been taken over by illegal landlords, who were renting out space to hundreds of poor people desperate for somewhere to live. Many of the building’s occupants were immigrants suspected of being in South Africa illegally.
Mr X also testified that the building was a haven of criminality and was effectively run by drug dealers.
Emergency services officials at the time said that most of the fire escapes in the building had been locked or chained closed that night, making the blaze even deadlier.
Many people jumped out of windows – some as high as three floors up – to escape the inferno, according to witnesses and health officials.
Some said they had to throw their babies and children out, hoping they would be caught by people below. Many of the injured suffered broken limbs and backs from jumping out the windows.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, ordered the inquiry into the disaster, which started in October by hearing testimony from emergency services personnel who responded to the fire in the early morning hours of 31 August.
Johannesburg’s acting chief of emergency services testified at the inquiry last year that the building was a “ticking timebomb”, because it was crowded with people living in wooden structures, while fire hoses and fire extinguishers had all been removed.
