Marius Koen received a phone call on the day of his inauguration. Photo: http://www.sbm.gov.za/

The gruesome package dumped outside the house of DA mayor for Saldanha Bay, Marius Koen, was not entirely unexpected. Koen tells Melkbos.net that a man phoned him on 12 August, the day of his inauguration, warning him that people had asked him to bewitch Koen. The man told me, “that he did not want to do it. He had looked at my aura and did not pick up any bad elements in it,” Koen says.

The man told Koen that he had turned down the job. He warned Koen that the people would simply find someone else to do it. This past Friday, a parcel containing a ram’s head, a dead rat, a styrofoam cup, a live tortoise, a handmade knife and a typed letter that had been laminated, were dumped on the sidewalk outside Koen’s home in Langebaan. The letter stated that Koen will be brought low. Koen did not see the threatening package however as he left the house via the garage. According to Koen his neighbour saw it. The parcel was removed by the police and charges of intimidation and common assault were laid at Langebaan police.

According to warrant officer P Lotz of Langebaan police the tortoise has in the meantime been released. “It’s the one witness but we can’t talk to him,” he quips sardonically. Notwithstanding the implicit threats Koen manages to sound upbeat today. He jokes, “The media is on my case.” He says DA provincial chairman Anton Bredell is very concerned in the light of the recent assassination of a DA ward councillor in the Northern Cape. Koen has been assigned a security detail.