Detective Hilton Botha has been replaced as the chief investigator in the murder investigation against South African Olympic Sprinter Oscar Pistorius.  This comes after embarrassing revelations that Botha himself is charged with seven counts of attempted murder in a separate case.

Botha and two other officers in 2009 were accused of getting drunk and shooting into a taxi crowded with passengers.  For some reason those charges were dropped but later reinstated and Botha has a court date in May.

South Africa Police’s top detective will take over the investigation.  But you have to wonder about the decision process; when the call came in of a murder in the gated mansion of South Africa’s most-famous athlete and the victim was the country’s most-famous model Reeva Steenkamp, WHO decided to send the guy accused of attempted murder to investigate?