WAS CAPE TOWN MAN SET ALIGHT FOR BEING GAY?

A teenager has been arrested for stabbing and setting alight a Cape Town man, Neil Daniels, whose father believes he was killed for being gay.

In a report on Tuesday in the Daily Voice, Reverend Casper Daniels – who is the Moderator of the Christelike Evangelie Sending Kerk van Suid Afrika – said that the grisly attack on his son was a hate crime.

“I think the reason why they killed my son is because he was gay,” Reverend Daniels told the newspaper.

“I think it could have been a discrimination murder on gays because of the way it was carried out. The way they burnt his private parts.

“Why do this to my child?” he asked.

The still-smouldering body of the 36-year-old Daniels, who had also been stabbed in the stomach, was found by a member of the local neighbourhood watch on Monday in Milnerton.

The heartbroken reverend revealed that he had earlier driven past the crime scene unaware that his son’s body was lying nearby.

“My last words to him were ‘pasop (be careful)’. I waited for him the Sunday morning and the evening and it was strange because he always came (to church),” said Daniels.

Milnerton Police spokesperson Warrant Officer Daphne Dell told Mambaonline that an 18-year-old man has been arrested for the murder and would appear in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court tomorrow.

She said that she could not comment as to the motive for the brutal attack at this point as this was still being investigated.