South African police arrest man who says he started deadly fire to hide murder

The 29-year-old man, who was not named, said he had killed a man in the basement of the rundown building on the night of the fire by beating him and strangling him, according to South African media reports of the testimony.

Medics and emergency works at the scene of a deadly blaze in downtown Johannesburg on August 31, 2023 (Jerome Delay/AP, file)

A man was arrested on Tuesday and will face 76 counts of murder after telling an inquiry that he started a deadly building fire in South Africa last year while trying to get rid of the body of someone he had strangled in the apartment complex.

The shocking confession came when the man was testifying at the public inquiry into the causes of the night-time fire in Johannesburg in August, which was one of South Africa’s worst disasters with its death toll of 76.