POPULAR politician and attorney Jake Maseka (74), was assassinated at his office in zone 4 of Ga-Rankuwa, Tshwane yesterday morning.
He was shot execution style by men who ambushed him just after 7am. According to his secretary Portia Phahle, two men entered the office and asked to talk to Maseka.
“They had files with them and I asked them if they were clients.
“One of them said I was wasting their time,” she said.
Portia said they stormed into Maseka’s office and then she heard gunshots.
“I hid under the
table. They fled in a silver Polo Vivo.”
Two other suspects drove off in Maseka’s white Mercedes-Benz.
According to Maseka’s son Kgaogelo, the men demanded his father’s car keys.
“He gave them the keys and then they asked for his firearm. He told them he was too old to carry it with him, but they killed him anyway. Why would they kill an old man after taking his keys?
There was another motive behind his killing,” he said.
Maseka was shot twice in the head and died instantly.
He was well known in legal circles and was chairman of the Bophuthatswana Law Society in the Apartheid era.
He also served as an advocate there and later in the North West province.
At the time, he was an active member of the ANC.
He left the party and joined the Progressive Democratic Party before later joining the United Democratic Movement, where he served as a member of parliament.
He eventually broke away from the UDM and started the Movement Democratic Party, which he was still campaigning for when he was killed.
Kgaogelo denied that his father might have been killed for political reasons.
The news of Maseka’s murder shocked many.
Attorney Lesego Mogotsi said: “We learned so many things from him.
It’s unbelievable that he could be killed like this.”
His distraught wife Shirley (50) was too shocked to speak.
Ga-Rankuwa police spokesman Warrant Officer Matthews Nkoadi said a case of murder was being investigated.
He also confirmed Maseka’s car was recovered a few kilometres from his office.
