A man was arrested on Tuesday hours after claiming responsibility for a South African building fire last year that killed 76 people while trying to dispose of the body of someone strangled in the basement of the dilapidated apartment complex at the behest of a drug dealer.
The shocking and unexpected confession came as the man testified at an ongoing inquiry into the cause of the August fire at a block of flats in central Johannesburg, which was one of South Africa’s worst disasters.
The 29-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, had told the inquest that he killed another man on the night of the fire by beating and strangling him, according to South African media reports of the testimony. He said he then doused the man’s body with gasoline and lit it on fire with a match, according to 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 Tuesday that they had arrested a man in connection with the fire after he confessed to arson as part of the investigation. The man was facing 76 counts of murder, 120 counts of attempted murder and arson, police said in a statement.
The interrogation to which he testified is not a criminal proceeding and his confession came as a complete surprise. The inquest is investigating what caused the fire and what safety failures could have resulted in so many people losing their lives. In the interrogation, he testified because he was a resident of the building.
The coroner ordered that he not be identified after his testimony, and a lawyer leading the witness examination said 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 was believed to have started the fire that ripped through the dilapidated five-storey building in central Johannesburg, killing dozens, including at least 12 children. More than 80 people were injured in the overnight fire.
Dozens dead in a building fire in South Africa’s largest city
Dozens dead in a building fire in South Africa’s largest city
South African police said the man would appear in court soon, but did not give a date.
The fire drew public attention to downtown Johannesburg’s long-standing problem with “squatters,” structures that have fallen into disrepair and been occupied by squatters and abandoned by the authorities. There are hundreds of them in the old downtown, 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 migrants suspected of being in South Africa illegally.
Mr. X also testified that the building was a crime den and was essentially run by drug dealers.
![Firefighters extinguish a blaze in a building in Johannesburg in August. Photo: AFP](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/01/24/f39da34c-e06f-47a4-80d4-49d11de5123e_c7092b25.jpg)
![Firefighters extinguish a blaze in a building in Johannesburg in August. Photo: AFP](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/01/24/f39da34c-e06f-47a4-80d4-49d11de5123e_c7092b25.jpg)
Emergency officials said at the time that most of the fires in the building were locked or chained that night, making the fire even more deadly. Many people jumped from windows – some as high as three stories – to escape the inferno, according to witnesses and health officials.
Some said they had to throw their babies and children out, hoping the people below would catch them. Many of the injured suffered broken limbs and backs from jumping from the windows.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered an inquiry into the disaster that began in October after hearing testimony from emergency services personnel who responded to the fire in the early hours of August 31.
Johannesburg’s deputy chief of emergency services testified to the inquest last year that the building was a “ticking time bomb” because it was full of people living in wooden structures and fire extinguishers and extinguishers had been removed.