By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Muhsin Hendricks, consirered the world’s “first openly gay imam”, has been shot dead Bethelsdorp near Gqeberha, SA police services (SAPS) confirmed.
According to a statement by police spokesperson Captain Sandra Janse Van Rensburg, Hendricks was shot dead at Haley Place, Extension 24, Bethelsdorp.
A widely circulated video shows a gold-coloured Volkswagen T-Roc – in which Hendricks was a passenger in the backseat – attempting to pull away from a curb in a residential area. A silver-colored Hilux double cab blocks the exit. Two people get out. One of them runs up to the T-Roc and opens fire towards the back window. It is hard to make out the precise actions of the second person who is less visible in the video.
The driver in the T-Roc was left unscathed and nothing was stolen. This strongly suggests it was an assassination.
Captain van Rensburg said, “Two unknown suspects with covered faces got out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots at the vehicle. Thereafter they fled the scene, and the driver noticed that Hendricks, who was seated at the back of the vehicle, was shot and killed.”
It has been reported that Hendricks was in Gqeberha to officiate a wedding between two women, but the facts about this remain unclear and we have not been able to contact the people who were getting married.
At this stage there are no further details.
Anybody with information is asked to call the investigating officer, Detective Colonel Dawie Schotz, on 082 319 8673 or SAPS Crime Stop on 08600 10111, or report to the nearest police station.
While political assassinations over money and power are not uncommon in South Africa, murders for purely ideological reasons are extremely unusual. The most prominent one was the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani.
Hendricks was involved in various LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, came out as gay in 1996. Two years later he started hosting meetings in his home city for LGBTQ+ Muslims, who treated him like their community imam.
In 2011 Hendricks bolstered his role as an imam figure by setting up a mosque space after a friend endured a local sermon condemning homosexuality.
He ran the Al-Ghurbaah mosque at Wynberg near his birthplace, Cape Town. The mosque provides “a safe space in which queer Muslims and marginalised women can practise Islam”, its website states.