[imagesource:iol]

Ukrainian Ivan Ivanov had prepared so diligently for his hike along the East Fort Hiking trail on Chapman’s Peak Drive in Hout Bay in 2019.

The contents of his recovered bag indicate that the only danger in Ivanov’s mind was getting lost, or getting caught in a sudden weather change, but instead, he was brutally murdered and left for dead by three men hiding in the bushes.

The suspects had taken his backpack, full of things like extra food, clothes, and other tools and gadgets to help him survive should he suddenly take a wrong turn. Unfortunately, nothing could prepare him for being stabbed to death.

Image: Facebook

Ivanov, then a resident in Switzerland, was taking a break after a business trip to Durban, enjoying Cape Town during his time off, per News24. His colleague, Eric Naidoo from Bureau Veritas, said he loved showing photographs of his wife Tina and their children Taisia, Gleb and Makar – the youngest of which was just two years old then – to colleagues.

But his life was cut short when he made it a few metres from the car park, near the ruins of the fort along the hiking trail in Hout Bay that once guarded that section of the coastline.

Image: Cape Hikes

Sinaye Mposelwa, Matthew Giyo and Franklin Isaacs were arrested and charged with murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

On Monday, Mposelwa pleaded guilty, admitting that he and the two other men had gone to East Fort to hide in the bushes along the hiking trail to rob whoever came past them. They had knives, and they were prepared to use them if anyone put up a fight.

Mposelwa said Ivanov “did not comply”, so they stabbed him.

One of the witnesses in Mposelwa’s trial was Jules Silbernagel, who testified that he and his wife had just started walking their dog along the path on that fateful day when they came upon three men acting “erratically”, per another News24 article:

“One was trying to jog. One was doing some kind of star jump,” Silbernagel testified. As the couple walked up the trail, the three men walked past them, doubled back, walked past them again, then doubled back again, and hid in a bush.

Silbernagel said: “They were doing a very bad job of hiding. We decided to get off the mountain.”

That’s when his wife posted an alert on a safety app, which sent security forces scuttling to catch the culprits. CCP operations manager John-Jacques de Villiers testified that he knew the man they caught as “Slizo” from around Hout Bay, describing him as full of blood and looking shocked when he was caught.

He faces a minimum sentence of life in prison for murder and 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances. Mposelwa’s trial was separated from Giyo and Isaacs’ trial because they pleaded not guilty. Their trial began on Tuesday.

[source:news24]