Police investigate double murder after Bosasa liquidator Cloete Murray and son gunned down in Midrand

19 Mar 2023

Police are investigating two counts of murder after the high-profile Bosasa liquidator Cloete Murray and his son were gunned down in Midrand, Johannesburg, on Saturday in what appears to be a targeted hit.

Insolvency practitioner Cloete Murray, who was the court-appointed liquidator for African Global Operations (formerly Bosasa), has died in hospital after being shot in a suspected assassination on the N1 in Midrand, Johannesburg, on Saturday.

It was reported that Murray (50) and his son Thomas (28) were travelling on the N1 north, near the New Road off-ramp at about about 2.45pm on Saturday, when unidentified gunmen fired at them.

Police spokesperson Dimakatso Sello confirmed the shooting: “[...] on 18 March 2023, two men (reportedly a father and son) were travelling together when their vehicle was shot at by unknown suspects.”

Thomas sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was declared dead on the scene. Murray was rushed to hospital in critical condition, but died of his injuries on Sunday morning.

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“The police will now be investigating two counts of murder,” Sello told Daily Maverick on Sunday.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stop on 08600 10111 or anonymously report tip-offs on the MySAPS application, which can be downloaded on any smartphone.

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Murray, one of the founding directors of the insolvency company Sechaba Trust where his son also worked as a legal advisor, was involved in the liquidation of African Global Operations – formerly state contractor Bosasa. Bosasa has been in liquidation since February 2019. Several of its senior executives were implicated in corruption linked to State Capture.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘Bosasa simply had no shame’ – Watson brothers’ company hammered in State Capture report

In the third instalment of his State Capture report, released last March, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo laid bare the extent to which Bosasa relied on bribing government officials to win contracts worth billions of rand.

A confidential 417 inquiry into Bosasa has been ongoing for more than a year, with politically connected figures expected to testify before it, as Murray and his team attempted to establish facts around the collapse of the Bosasa group, News24 reported.

Murray was also a liquidator of Trillian Management Consulting, a subsidiary of Gupta-linked Trillian Capital Partners, which was liquidated at the insistence of Eskom over its inability to repay the parastatal R595-million — per a High Court order handed down in June 2019.

He was also working on the liquidation of Comair, the owner of Kulula and operator of British Airways in southern Africa, as of June last year. DM

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