The woman seen leaving the scene of a bus inferno at the Eagle Liner/Intercity Xpress sales office on Cape Road in Newton Park on November 2 has been arrested.

On Monday, Yamkela Mahobe, 24, made a brief appearance in the Gqeberha magistrate’s court.

She was arrested two weeks after the incident in which she allegedly set a multimillion-rand luxury coach alight after an altercation about a lost cellphone. 

Despite the best efforts of sales workers, who told her the phone had been recovered and dispatched to the company’s Komani branch, she had allegedly threatened to burn down a bus. 

An investigation was then launched. 

Police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said Mount Road detectives received information that Mahobe was at her mother’s house in Willowvale. 

“Arrangements were made with Willowvale police to [effect] an arrest,” Naidu said.

“She appeared in the Gqeberha magistrate’s court [on Monday] on a charge of malicious damage to property.” 

Naidu said the case against Mahobe was malicious damage to property and not arson, as previously communicated by the police. 

“The estimated damage to the bus is R3m,” she said. 

The case was postponed to Tuesday for a date for a formal bail application to be arranged.

Mahobe remains in custody. 

HeraldLIVE