WATCH: ‘We do not want to push a narrative of racism’ – Anele Hoyana’s brother

WARNING: This story contains details some readers may find disturbing. 

In an interview with the SABC, Olwethu Hoyana, the brother of slain Eastern Cape traditional healer Anele Hoyana, was confronted on whether he believes his brother’s alleged killer, Fritz Joubert, was racist.

The killing of Hoyana, allegedly by Fritz Joubert, who was later killed by police in an apparent act of self-defence, has caused outrage, and has been labelled a racially motivated incident by various voices on social media, as well as by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Olwethu, however, spoke on behalf of the family, saying: “We do not want to push a narrative of racism.”

Asked about whether he believed Joubert “was someone who despised black people”, Olwethu said” “It’s difficult to say.

“What we do know from the neighbourhood is that he was an aggressive individual, he’d never shown any signs of aggression towards us previously. In actual fact, he and my mother knew each other very well. My mother could call Fritz and say can you help us with this or that.

“But we do get reports that he was an aggressive individual, even to other white people.”

The Citizen reported on Monday that various people came forward with stories of violent incidents involving Joubert following Hoyana’s death.

Olwethu said his brother and Joubert were friends.

“Fritz has been our neighbour for a while and had become very close to Anele, to the extent that Anele had been on Fritz’s farm for the past week or two and they were apparently in a business venture together.”

READ MORE: More horrifying stories of Fritz Joubert emerge

He added that the family was “not very clear” at this point on suggestions that Hoyana was in the process of training Joubert to become a sangoma.

Olwethu described the events on the night that led to his brother’s death as he and the family understood them.

“We are told that the previous night they had attended a ceremony at the local village and the assumption is that there maybe would have been alcohol consumed,” he said, adding that they later went back to Joubert’s house, where other people were present.

“Increasingly on the night Fritz had started to become aggressive towards Anele in particular as can be heard in the videos that are circulating and had started threatening Anele’s family” to the point that Hoyana’s two children were kidnapped and held in a room on Joubert’s property.

Olwethu, clearly traumatised, also detailed how he saw the aftermath of the killing and noted how Joubert appeared to have bludgeoned his brother so hard with a rifle that the rifle broke in the process.

“When the police arrived, they tried to reason with him, and negotiated with him to release the children,” he said, saying one policeman was able to distract Joubert and release the children.

After this, according to Olwethu, Joubert became more violent and unreasonable and tried to wrestle one of the police officers’ firearms from his hands, which led to the scuffle in which Joubert was shot dead.

Olwethu said some of the videos were taken by another neighbour of Fritz’, Sabelo, who handed the footage over to police later, telling them he had left the premises as he could tell the situation was getting out of hand.

Other videos appear to have been taken by Joubert himself.

The man who filmed the other videos is introduced as Sabelo Ngaka in one of these clips.

Olwethu said he watched a very short clip of one of the videos, and couldn’t watch further.

In the clip, Joubert can be seen taking a selfie while continuing to bludgeon Hoyana, who at that point was already unconscious on the floor.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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