JOHANNESBURG, April 10: The father of a South African swimming champion was preparing on Tuesday to fly to Pakistan to collect the body of his son after he was found murdered and then stuffed in a bin bag.
Police found the body of Kenneth Smith on the outskirts of Peshawar city on Sunday. Doctors, who carried out the post mortem on the body, said they suspected he had been poisoned.
Smith’s father Neville said he wanted to discover the circumstances behind his son’s death and why he was in Peshawar in the first place.
“I am going to fly to Pakistan on Wednesday to try and get the truth from police there. I don’t have any idea what my lad was doing there,” Neville Smith told the Beeld newspaper.
“I will bring his body back to South Africa, there are no cremation facilities in Pakistan. It is also only fitting that he come back to South Africa.”
The 26-year-old from South Africa’s capital of Pretoria was 10 kilometre open swimming champion for three years running but had taken time off after injuring his shoulder in December last year.
His family was not aware he was in Pakistan, and thought he had gone to Dubai to find a job as a swimming coach.
The swimmer had arrived in Peshawar on January 22, having left South Africa the day before. His passport was found in his pocket.
His family last heard from him two weeks ago when he sent a text message to a family member saying he was in Europe.
The cause of Smith’s death was unclear, with previous reports suggesting he had been poisoned while Beeld reported he had been shot in the back of the head.
South African diplomatic officials were on their way to Pakistan to verify that the body found was that of a South African.
“We are waiting for officials in Pakistan, we have to verify if he is a South African national, the investigation has not yet been concluded and we cannot say with certainty he is a South African,” foreign affairs spokeswoman Nomfanelo Kota said.
