Ex-rugby player arrested for axe killings

South African police have arrested a former Currie Cup rugby player over three axe murders allegedly to avenge the gang-rape and HIV infection of his daughter, media said Wednesday.

Police arrested the 34-year-old man, who played for the Blue Bulls in the Vodacom Cup and Currie Cup, in Durban in the early hours of Tuesday, Afrikaans daily Die Beeld reported.

One victim was decapitated and others hacked in the neck, said the Cape Argus which quoted a man who escaped an attack last week after being confronted by a man who accused him of being a rapist and infecting his daughter.

"As the axe came down towards my head, I ducked and it scratched my stomach," Khangelani Mdluli, 27, told the afternoon daily, saying the man pulled out an axe after Mdluli asked who he and his daughter were. CAPE TOWN, AFP