Boxing Champion Zolani Tete Murder: Four Arrested in South Africa Ambush
Last update: August 24, 2026
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A boxing legend gunned down at his own gate. Now four suspects are in custody as South Africa mourns another icon lost to gun violence.
Four people have been arrested over the murder of two time world champion Zolani Tete, as cbinews.tv reports.
Tete, 38, known as Last Born, was shot dead in an ambush outside his home in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape, on Friday evening. Police say he was in his car waiting for his gate to open when two armed men in balaclavas emerged from another vehicle and fired multiple shots. A 27 year old woman with him was also shot and is in hospital.
One suspect, aged 22, was arrested on Saturday and will appear in court on Monday facing murder and attempted murder charges. The other three, arrested on Sunday, are due in court on Tuesday. Two have been charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition.
Tributes have poured in. Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie said South Africa has lost one of the finest fighters it has ever produced.
Tete is one of Mdantsane’s greats. The township near East London has produced a string of world champions. He won the IBF super flyweight title in 2014 and the WBO bantamweight title from 2017 to 2019 and still holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest knockout in a title fight, 11 seconds against Siboniso Gonya in 2017.
He beat Liverpool’s Paul Butler in the UK in 2015 and had 29 wins in 34 fights. His last bout was in July 2022 when he knocked out Briton Jason Cunningham in London, later ruled a no contest after he tested positive for stanozolol.
He was given a four year ban by UK Anti-Doping which lapsed in July this year. His manager Mla Tengimfene said he had been training for a comeback.
His killing has renewed focus on South Africa’s violent crime crisis. The country continues to have one of the world’s highest murder rates despite recent declines in homicides. Former world boxing champion Zolani Last Born Tete was shot dead outside his home in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province on Friday.
Police Minister Firoz Cachalia recently said levels of crime are still unacceptably high with 58 murders per day on average during this quarter. That is 5,181 murders between January and March this year alone.
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