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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Police make lightning arrests in black taxi-owner’s murder case
14:35 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
Dispatch: Police team arrests black taxi-owner’s 3 suspected murderers after 765-km, ten-day chase…
September 25 2009 – In comparison to the very poor police performance often recorded when Afrikaners lodge complaints, even of the most horrendous crimes such as farm-attacks -- (the latest fiascos were reported this week from the DeWildt/Brits area) -- over in the Eastern Cape, police superintendent Mrs Vuyisiwe Tembani, station commissioner of the Dispatch SAPS, has a much better approach to policing. This inspiring police superintendent is able to respond with such lightning-fast policing methods that her team, travelling 765 km over a ten-day period, very quickly was able to arrest the three-member gang suspected of murdering a local black taxi-owner, Sam Kundayi on August 14 2009. Tembani’s task-team also recovered all of the looted furniture from the murdered taxi-owner’s burgled house. The dead man’s family was full of praise for this dedicated police work – as indeed they should be.
- Police inspector M Olivier reports that ‘under Tembani’s inspired guidance’, her four-constable task team -- constables Mahle Mbixane, Monwabisi Petse, Mpumelelo Feni and Siliviano Blundin -- journeying a total of 765 km, arrested the three suspected murderers of a local taxi-owner murdered on 14 August 2009 within just ten days. The suspects now all are in police custody, expected to make their next court appearance on 18 November 2009. Case solved!
The East Cape murder investigation unfolded quickly from Friday, 14 August 2009, when taxi-owner Mr Sam Kundayi was found murdered in his house in Marion Street, Despatch. The 52-year-old man lived alone most of the time as his wife, a teacher, works near Mthatha. On Tuesday, 11 August 2009 his wife had left for work. On Thursday, 13 August 2009 his family became concerned about him as no-one had heard from him or seen him since Tuesday. Police forced open the door and discovered that the entire house was emptied out. All the furniture was gone and the place reeked of firelighting fluid. Initially, they found no sign of Mr Kundayi but returned with his family the next day to conduct a more thorough search of the entire scene – and discovered Mr Kundayi’s body underneath some planks stacked under the braai area. He’d been drowned, a post-mortem revealed.
Superintendent Tembani rapidly set up a task team which got important leads very quickly – three constables were then dispatched to Cape Town, where they arrested a 28-year-old man near Table Mountain and confiscatied a 9 mm pistol – which, it was later established, had been stolen.
Picture: The four constables on Tembani’s task team worked around the clock and by 19 August 2009 had also recovered all the stolen furniture from a secondhand shop in Port Elizabeth, being loaded by Constable Mbixane. Picture: SAPS inspector M Olivier.
The post mortem report confirmed that Mr Kundayi had been killed through drowning. Police believe that the firelighting-fluid was just used to mask the smell of his dead body. A 25-year-old male suspect was rounded up in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth during the early hours of 20 August; and on 25 August, a 32-year-old man also was arrested in Port Elizabeth.
The three men have now been charged for the murder of Sam Kundayi. They are still in custody pending the next court appearance on 18 November 2009.
- Mr Kundayi’s family was full of praise for Supt Tembani and her team of dedicated police officers.
- “Had it not been for their swift response, the possibility of making any arrest would have been slim. It is time that the community work closely to the Police” (sic) said one of Kundayi’s family members, quoted in the police report by Inspector M. Olivier, tel. cell 083 6525 826 http://www.sapsjournalonline.gov.za/dynamic/journal_dynamic.aspx?pageid=414&jid=16888
When the police aren’t there for Afrikaners:
http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/09/when-police-isnt-there-for-you_25.html
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When the police isn’t there for you –
by Chris Louw, journalist, De Wildt area, greater Pretoria
2009-09-25 - When the SA Police and the State’s sympathies increasingly are on the side of the criminals there’s a screw lose, writes freelance journalist Chris Louw.
In his De Wildt area near Brits, the breakins at smallholdings are an epidemic yet aren’t even treated as crimes by police. And when farmers lodge formal charges after they are attacked, the crime-victims are arrested instead and thrown in jail, with trade unionist Zwelinzima Vavi* holding a speech outside the courtroom claiming that ‘it’s a daily occurrance that white farmers shoot at and assault black residents…’
Picture: Police vehicle parked at township pub…
Journalist Chris Louw writes: “The epidemic nightly breakins at De Wildt smallholdings aren’t viewed as ‘crimes’ by police – and not one of the nine farm attacks last month have been solved…
Louw writes: “Here in De Wildt, between Pretoria-North and Hartbeespoort, the breakins at smallholdings have become so endemic that they often aren’t even reported to police any longer. What does it help if you know nothing further will be done about them?
“The Americans’ broken-window policy’ is well-known: if windows are broken in a building and nobody fixes them, vandals will break even more windows and eventually break into the building. Punish that crime as it starts and the right message is sent. This policy has obtained remarkable success in combating crime in the New York area.
“However the opposite is happening here in De Wildt. Initially there were one or two breakins a week. Then it became a nightly event and now it’s an epidemic, with men who openly run around each night with stolen TV-sets, radios and laptop computers, using escape routes right across the smallholdings.
- And the local police, Acacia but especially the Mmakau police station – no longer handle housebreakings as a crime at all: Not one case of housebreaking has been solved in the region of Silkaatsnek and De Wildt by the policemen at Mmakau. These police apparently view their jobs as ‘done’ as soon as a statement has been taken and all the elementary paperwork has been conducted. Actual detective work does not exist – except for one exception:
“Shopowner George Santos borrowed police’s bullet-proof vest and caught the burglars himself”
On 1 June 2009, Mr George Santos’ shop was broken into north of De Wildt. A strange event then followed, and it was actually recorded on Santos’ own security cameras.
On this video, it can be clearly seen how nine burly police officers of Mmakau simply refused to enter the building. It’s also seen on this video that Santos then borrows one of the police officers’ bullet-proof vests and walks into his shop to confront the burglars himself.
- Nine police officers – too cowardly to do their jobs. These suspects were arrested only due to Santos’ own initiative but have since then already been released on bail.
Farmer Davel’s stolen electric pumps were found in Ga-Rankuwa by the farmer himself…
And Mmakau’s police officers cannot even deliver results when the smallholding residents point them straight to the guilty parties themselves…
- For example: In August 2007, two electric pumps belonging to irrigation-crop farmer Gertjie Davel were stolen. He actually followed the pushbarrow’s trail straight to the township of Ga-Rankuwa, where the vehicle was found abandoned underneath some rubbish and the electric engines themselves were located inside a shack. “I phoned the police,’ said Davel, “They confiscated that shack resident’s identity document and a photograph of him which was inside the shack. Thus far, they have made no further progress and all my enquiries fall on deaf ears.’
- Apparently, Mmakau’s detectives find this cause a haunting puzzle…
Seven farm attacks in De Wildt last month: none solved…
If Davel’s incident can be held up as an example of the ‘broken-window’ syndrome, the seven armed farm attacks which occured this past month in De Wildt alone, can also be seen as the inevitable escalation of this problem (which got worse because) it did not get immediate attention.
- In each of these seven farm attacks, women and domestic workers were attacked in broad daylight and robbed at gunpoint. Not one of these robbers have thus far been caught.
‘De Wildt Helpmekaar Company’ captures criminals with the goods – but Mmakau police just releases them
The result now is that the smallholding-residents have now taken matters into their own hands, split up the area into regions of responsibility, and elected their own leaders who were placed in charge of security in their region. And more and more people are now joining the radio-network which interlinks these crime-fighters under the De Wildt Helpmekaar Company.
In emergency cases, residents now call for help via the radio-network – and within minutes, four to ten bakkies with volunteers will start their search for the criminals – and with considerable success:
- at least nine men, aged from 18 to 30 years, most of them Zimbabweans, have already been captured over the past three weeks.
But – there’s a problem: Not one of these arrested men have thus far even been charged, nor appeared in any court of law, despite the fact that the stolen goods were found in their possession when they were handed over to the police.
- The Mmakau police force simply releases these arrested men without punishing them.
Police station in township manned only by black officers has to also ‘patrol white farm area’
“Mmakau is an anomaly – a police station which is manned ONLY by black police officers and which is located inside a black township. However from this limited enclave, the police are supposed to look after the safety of all the white farmers in the area too.
One is constantly being admonished over the radio ‘not to take the law into your own hands’. However, when the land-owners do not get access to the judicial system, conflict about this matter seems to be unavoidable.
Mr Gerhard Short, who farms in Schietfontein for instance, ihas been terrorised by criminals for a long time now.
Yet thus far, nothing has resulted from the eight cases of housebreaking, theft and illegal tresspassing which Short has reported at the Mmakau police station.
Early one morning, Short got into a scuffle with a group of Zimbabweans who were on the servitude of his farm without his permission. Three of these Zimbabweans were bitten by Short’s dog – and he himself was also bitten by the dog during the scuffle.
Short then lodged a complaint of intimidation and illegal tresspassing at the Mmakau police station.
So late that afternoon, a group of about 20 black police officers charged onto his farm and arrested the injured farmer. And that night, the cops took the Zimbabweans he’d lodged a complaint against, to the hospital for ‘treatment of their bite wounds.’
“Meanwhile Short, injured himself, remained uncared for in the police cells, despite a promise from police inspector Tsotseti that the white farmer would also be taken for treatment – a promise made amongst others to Mr Hannes Venter, head of the community-policing forum in the area, and the Transvaal Agricultural Union’s Wannie Scribante.
“That following morning, it was the injured farmer, Short, who appeared in the Brits magistrate’s court on charges of ‘attempted murder, pointing a firearm and assault with the intent to incur grievous injury.’ The investigating officer, one constable Motaung testified that he had no objection to granting the white farmer bail: Short, he testified, ‘had given his full cooperation, had handed in his firearms voluntarily, and is a wellknown and leading citizen in the area’.
- If constable Motaung’s testimony can be accepted by the court, asks Short’s lawyer Marius Hamann, ‘why was his client locked up in the first place in the police cells?”
What was the real purpose of this arrest?
Zwelinzima Vavi of Cosatu trade union’s public statements about white farmers ‘daily attacking black people’:
“Apparently what was also taken into account against Short’s bail application was that another farmer in Brits, Dr Dawie Swart, would also appear the next day on a charge of attempted murder when he was accused of firing a shotgun at three black males who were tresspassing on his property and stealing oranges – and that the Cosatu trade union had apparently arranged a protest meeting for which they had drummed up 300 people at the court house. At later appearances, these numbers dwindled to just a handful.
“And it was this particular protest action about another farmer, which then gave public prosecutor Kekana a ‘reason’ why Short’s bail had to be set at R1,500 ..
- “The community,’ said Kekana, ‘was sick and tired of assaults being carried out by white farmers against black people…’ Magistrate Rosenberg then set his bail at R3,000 and ordered Short to appear on 27 October .
‘Suspected farm attacker’ released on R300 bail by same magistrate:
Yet only twenty minutes earlier – that very same magistrate Rosenberg also heard a case in which a 24-year-old black man, Prim Misoma of Attenridgeville was in court after he was arrested with an illegal firearm in the very same region where seven armed farm attacks had been carried out against white owned-farms (in August).
- Misoma had been arrested in Hartbeespoort, about 5km from Silkaatsnek – and in the very same region where a large group of young black men had carried out seven armed farm attacks against white-owned farms.
- Yet this Prim Misoma was released on a mere R300 bail… by the same magistrate.
Crime victims get penalised:
The question one must ask is the following: how can a society function effectively when productive people are penalised whenever they turn to the police to try and get crimes solved, while suspects are handled with kid-gloves?
If the police and the state’s sympathies lie with the criminals – as it increasingly appears to be – there’s certainly a screw lose. Because what is happening in De Wildt, is not unique, according to the many news reports.
Can South Africa really afford to lose the trust placed in our judicial system by economically-productive citizens?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Dawie Swart of Brits charged with four counts of attempted murder
July 08 2009 By Poloko Tau - “The Brits community came out in force to protest against the courts’ handling of racist farmers’ cases as Dawie Swart appeared on four counts of attempted murder. The angry community were calling for the Brits Magistrate’s Court to revoke Swart’s R7 000 bail.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi embraced Thabo Thabane, who was allegedly shot by Swart in an eye, as they both stood on a makeshift podium on the back of a bakkie.
- “We were only walking home after a game of soccer. I don’t know why he shot at us,” murmured the 15-year-old. Next to the bakkie stood his equally shaken brother Tebogo, 13, and their neighbours Leonard Nkadimeng, 19, and Nchocho Ntoagae, who were also shot at by the farmer two days before Youth Day at his Klipkop farm. The other three were shot in their arms and treated and discharged from hospital, while Thabo has to go back to hospital on July 19 for another attempt to remove the bullet from his eye socket. The four on Tuesday pointed to a spot inside Swart’s yard where orange trees are fenced in.They admitted that they werecrossing through when the white farmer allegedly opened fire on them with what police described as “live rounds”.
“For over a year we have walked this footpath going through an opening in the fence, and there has never been a problem. People crossed here and we also did on our way to Swart’s shop or to the football grounds close to his shop,” Thabo said. “I don’t know what got into him on the day when he suddenly emerged from the woods and shot at us. We ran for our lives as he shouted ‘Wat soek julle hier?’ (What are you looking for here?) but I had already been hit in the eye.”The case was postponed to August 7 for further investigation.
Addressing about 300 residents outside court yesterday, Vavi called for the speedy transformation of the judiciary, citing ‘a string of unsolved cases involving murders and abuse of workers by farmers who escaped with a slap on the wrist or were never prosecuted.’
- “Swart claims these boys were stealing oranges from his farm, and in his book, people stealing his oranges must be shot and killed. To him the life of a black person is as cheap as an orange,” Vavi said to loud cheers from the crowd. He also said that if farmers continued to assault, harass and exploit workers, their products would be boycotted.
“Those who get arrested get bail, after which their cases will be postponed endlessly. At the end they’re either not found guilty or have the charges changed to culpable homicide, having said they were not intending to kill or had mistaken the victim for a dog or a baboon,” he said.
“We urge President Zuma and the minister of justice to ensure that transformation in the judiciary happens without any further delay so that all the victims can see justice.’ Vavi warned that a “bomb was ticking” and there was a need to address the issue urgently before communities took the law into their own hands.
Swart’s bail was extended until his next appearance in August .http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20090708041857449C633012
When the police isn’t there for you –
by Chris Louw, journalist, De Wildt area, greater Pretoria
2009-09-25 - When the SA Police and the State’s sympathies increasingly are on the side of the criminals there’s a screw lose, writes freelance journalist Chris Louw.
In his De Wildt area near Brits, the breakins at smallholdings are an epidemic yet aren’t even treated as crimes by police. And when farmers lodge formal charges after they are attacked, the crime-victims are are arrested instead and thrown in jail so that trade unionist Zwelinzima Vavi can hold a speech outside the courtroom claiming that ‘it’s a daily occurrance that white farmers shoot at and assault black residents…’
Picture: Police vehicle parked at township pub…
Journalist Chris Louw writes: “The epidemic nightly breakins at De Wildt smallholdings aren’t viewed as ‘crimes’ by police – and not one of the nine farm attacks last month have been solved…
Louw writes: “Here in De Wildt, between Pretoria-North and Hartbeespoort, the breakins at smallholdings have become so endemic that they often aren’t even reported to police any longer. What does it help if you know nothing further will be done about them?
“The Americans’ broken-window policy’ is well-known: if windows are broken in a building and nobody fixes them, vandals will break even more windows and eventually break into the building. Punish that crime as it starts and the right message is sent. This policy has obtained remarkable success in combating crime in the New York area.
“However the opposite is happening here in De Wildt. Initially there were one or two breakins a week. Then it became a nightly event and now it’s an epidemic, with men who openly run around each night with stolen TV-sets, radios and laptop computers, using escape routes right across the smallholdings.
- And the local police, Acacia but especially the Mmakau police station – no longer handle housebreakings as a crime at all: Not one case of housebreaking has been solved in the region of Silkaatsnek and De Wildt by the policemen at Mmakau. These police apparently view their jobs as ‘done’ as soon as a statement has been taken and all the elementary paperwork has been conducted. Actual detective work does not exist – except for one exception:
“Shopowner George Santos borrowed police’s bullet-proof vest and caught the burglars himself”
On 1 June 2009, Mr George Santos’ shop was broken into north of De Wildt. A strange event then followed, and it was actually recorded on Santos’ own security cameras.
On this video, it can be clearly seen how nine burly sturdy police officers of Mmakau simply refused to enter the building. It’s also seen on this video that Santos then borrows one of the police officers’ bullet-proof vests and walks into his shop to confront the burglars himself.
- Nine police officers – too cowardly to do their jobs. These suspects were arrested only due to Santos’ own initiative but have since then already been released on bail.
Farmer Davel’s stolen electric pumps were found in Ga-Rankuwa by the farmer himself…
And Mmakau’s police officers cannot even deliver results when the smallholding residents point them straight to the guilty parties themselves…
- For example: In August 2007, two electric pumps belonging to irrigation-crop farmer Gertjie Davel were stolen. He actually followed the pushbarrow’s trail straight to the township of Ga-Rankuwa, where the vehicle was found abandoned underneath some rubbish and the electric engines themselves were located inside a shack. “I phoned the police,’ said Davel, “They confiscated that shack resident’s identity document and a photograph of him which was inside the shack. Thus far, they have made no further progress and all my enquiries fall on deaf ears.’
- Apparently, Mmakau’s detectives find this cause a haunting puzzle…
Seven farm attacks in De Wildt last month: none solved…
If Davel’s incident can be held up as an example of the ‘broken-window’ syndrome, the seven armed farm attacks which occured this past month in De Wildt alone, can also be seen as the inevitable escalation of this problem (which got worse because) it did not get immediate attention.
- In each of these seven farm attacks, women and domestic workers were attacked in broad daylight and robbed at gunpoint. Not one of these robbers have thus far been caught.
‘De Wildt Helpmekaar Company’ captures criminals with the goods – but Mmakau police just releases them
The result now is that the smallholding-residents have now taken matters into their own hands, split up the area into regions of responsibility, and elected their own leaders who were placed in charge of security in their region. And more and more people are now joining the radio-network which interlinks these crime-fighters under the De Wildt Helpmekaar Company.
In emergency cases, residents now call for help via the radio-network – and within minutes, four to ten bakkies with volunteers will start their search for the criminals – and with considerable success:
- at least nine men, aged from 18 to 30 years, most of them Zimbabweans, have already been captured over the past three weeks.
But – there’s a problem: Not one of these arrested men have thus far even been charged, nor appeared in any court of law, despite the fact that the stolen goods were found in their possession when they were handed over to the police.
- The Mmakau police force simply releases these arrested men without punishing them.
Police station in township manned only by black officers has to also ‘patrol white farm area’
“Mmakau is an anomaly – a police station which is manned ONLY by black police officers and which is located inside a black township. However from this limited enclave, the police are supposed to look after the safety of all the white farmers in the area too.
One is constantly being admonished over the radio ‘not to take the law into your own hands’. However, when the land-owners do not get access to the judicial system, conflict about this matter seems to be unavoidable.
Mr Gerhard Short, who farms in Schietfontein for instance, ihas been terrorised by criminals for a long time now.
- Yet thus far, nothing has resulted from the eight cases of housebreaking, theft and illegal occupation which Short has reported at the Mmakau police station.
Early one morning, Short got into a scuffle with a group of Zimbabweans who were on the servitude of his farm without his permission. Three of these Zimbabweans were bitten by Short’s dog – and he himself was also bitten by the dog during the scuffle.
- Short then lodged a complaint of intimidation and illegal entry at the Mmakau police station.
So late that afternoon, a group of about 20 black police officers charged onto his farm and arrested the injured farmer. And that night, the cops took the Zimbabweans he’d lodged a complaint about, to the hospital for ‘treatment of their bite wounds.’ Meanwhile Short, injured himself, remained uncared for in the police cells, despite a promise from police inspector Tsotseti that the white farmer would also be taken for treatment – a promise made amongst others to Mr Hannes Venter, head of the community-policing forum in the area, and the Transvaal Agricultural Union’s Wannie Scribante.
That following morning, it was the injured farmer, Shot, who appeared in the Brits magistrate’s court on charges of ‘attempted murder, pointing a firearm and assault with the intent to incur grievous damge.’ The investigating officer, one constable Motaung testified that he had no objection to granting the white farmer bail: Short, he testified, ‘had given his full cooperation, had handed in his firearms voluntarily, and is wellknown and a leading citizen in the area’.
If constable Motaung’s testimony can be accepted by the court, asks Short’s lawyer Marius Hamann, ‘why was his client locked up in the first place in the police cells?” What was the purpose of this arrest?
Zwelinzima Vavi of Cosatu trade union’s public statements about white farmers ‘daily attacking black people’:
Apparently what was also taken into account against Short’s bail application was that another farmer in Brits, Dr Dawie Swart, would also appear the next day on a charge of attempted murder when he was accused of firing a shot at three black males – and that the Cosatu trade union had apparently arranged a protest meeting for which they had drummed up 300 people at the court house. At later appearances, these numbers dwindled to just a handful.
- However Mr Zwelinzima Vavi was now able to say in public that ‘it is a daily occurrance for farmers to assault and shoot at black people’.
And it was this particular protest action about another farmer, which then gave public prosecutor Kekana a ‘reason’ why Short’s bail had to be set at R1,500 ..
- “The community,’ said Kekana, ‘was sick and tired of assaults being carried out by white farmers against black people…’ Magistrate Rosenberg then set his bail at R3,000 and ordered Short to appear on 27 October .
‘Suspected farm attacker’ released on R300 bail by same magistrate:
Yet only twenty minutes earlier – that very same magistrate Rosenberg also heard a case in which 24-year-old Prim Misoma of Attenridgeville was in court for owning an illegal firearm in the very same region where seven armed farm attacks had been carried out against white owned-farms.
- Misoma had been arrested in Harbeespoort, about 5km from Silkaatsnek – and in the very same region where a large group of young black men had carried out seven armed farm attacks against white-owned farms.
- Yet this Prim Misoma was released on a mere R300 bail…
Crime victims get penalised:
The question one must ask is the following: how can a society function effectively when productive people are penalised whenever they turn to the police to try and get crimes solved, while suspects are handled with kid-gloves?
If the police and the state’s sympathies lie with the criminals – as it increasingly appears to be – there’s certainly a screw lose. Because what is happening in De Wildt, is not unique, according to the many news reports.
Can South Africa really afford to lose the trust placed in our judicial system by economically-productive citizens?
Policing news Sept 25 2009
East London -- Where are Jurgens Grimbeek and wife Jeanette Coetzee, who left behind six valuable firearms on a farm at Cove Rock, East London?
Sept 24 2009. East London police have seized six deeply mysterious firearms which were left behind by a couple from the Free State who vanished after a visit to Graggiban farm near the seaside cottage resort of Cove Rock.
Police in East London, left, said they have now confiscated the discarded guns, one of which was unlicensed: a Colt 45 pistol, a .38 special revolver, a 9 mm C2 pistol, two Bruno Kal 006.22 Rifles, a Bruno KA 0283 Rifle and two empty magazines.
Couple vanished after mystery shooting:
Police said these firearms had been left behind by a man called Jurgens Grimbeek or Grimeek, who arrived in February at the Cove Rock area with his wife, Jeanette Coetzee. The couple said they were from the Free State. One of these rifles has apparently been traced to an shooting incident in which the couple had been involved, and during which a shot was fired which had injured Mr Grimbeek. However while he was being rushed to hospital, he had jumped from the vehicle. Police also said they are still searching for the injured man and his wife. source: Superintendent M.R. Tana, tel. 0823017593, email elareacommunic@saps.org.za
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WHITE RIVER: VIP-protection officer executed with military carbine in Mpumalanga
September 24 2009 – SAPA reports that the Mpumalanga police on Thursday appealed to anyone with information relating to the execution-style murder of the province's (unnamed) protection and security services officer on Tuesday to come forward. There are about 15,000 officers in this VIP-protection unit countrywide. Superintendent Abie Khoabane said the policeman was gunned down with an R5 military rifle on Tuesday night while walking to his home in Masoyi near White River adjacent to Nelspruit. He didn’t provide any more details as to the number of assailants, nor whether there had been anything robbed during the lethal assault. Anyone with information can contact Khoabane on 082-415-8375. – Sapa
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Motherwell, Port Elizabeth – Constable Bongani Zungula survives being shot by hijackers
September 24 2009 -- Constable Bongani Zungula was allegedly shot by two men to whom he had apparently offered a lift. Zungula, off duty at the time, was asked by the pair to be dropped off in Motherwell at about 10pm. It’s unknown whether the men were acquaintances. Police spokesman Captain Andre Beetge said Zungula, who was driving his Toyota Tazz, took these men to NU10. “Once they got there, one man produced a firearm and pointed it at Zungula, demanding that they be taken to Old Grahamstown Road close to Kwazakhele,” Beetge said. Zungula did not have a firearm on him at the time of the attack. “On their arrival there, they ordered him out of his vehicle. Zungula was then shot once in the side. The men then sped off in his vehicle,” Beetge said. Zungula was taken to Mercantile Hospital. His condition is stable.A case of car hijacking and attempted murder has been opened.http://www.epherald.co.za/article.aspx?id=476561
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MICHAUSDAL: Insp. Kordom arrests burglar with loot at Primary School
Sept 21 2009 -- The sector commander of Michausdal, Insp Kordom, left, arrested a suspect at the Carinus Primary School while he was breaking into the school after a tip-off from the public at about 23:15 on Monday, 21 September 2009. They arrested a man in his thirties who was breaking into and vandalising the school. The police confiscated housebreaking implements in the possession of the suspect and also recovered all the stolen property that had already been packed into bags, ready to be removed off the property. Well done, to Insp Kordom and the members of “A” shift that were on duty and assisted with the arrest. source: Capt S P. Smith, tel. 082 301 8668
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CRADOCK: Rapists get heavy prison sentences from regional magistrate
Convicted child-rapist John Bhungeni (58) was sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment in the Cradock Regional Court on 17 August 2009. Investigating officer D/Inspector Loyiso Mazitshana of the Cradock Detectives department said Bhungeni and the seven-year-old victim were staying together in a house where he had raped her several times in 2007.
Another convicted rapist, Thulani Brouwers (22) also was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the Cradock Regional Court on 25 May 2009, said Mazitshana. Brouwers had raped a 39-year-old relative in Lingelihle township on 18 August 2007. source: Inspector CZ. Nkamba, tel 082 301 8552 http://www.sapsjournalonline.gov.za/dynamic/journal_dynamic.aspx?pageid=414&jid=16890
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LADYBRAND: Male leaders pledge: ‘No Violence against Women and Children”
August 29 2009 – LADYBRAND SAPS – During an SAPS community safety event at Itumeleng Community Hall in Manyatseng, Ladybrand on Saturday, 29 August 2009, residents and police held a peaceful march from the library to the hall to protest the high level of violence against women and children.
Also participating in the anti-violence march were the community’s neighbours in adjacent Lesotho, including the mayor of Mantsopa municipality, as were local MECs, deputy-directors of the departments of justice and correctional services, all the area’s traditional healers and leading women from local church councils.
All the men – from both Lesotho and South African -- then signed a formal pledge poster, left, promising to fight agaisnt violence targetting Women and Children. source: Sergeant Tshifhiwa Muifha, tel (051) 9234033, cell 0823722082
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Dispatch: Police team arrests taxi-driver’s 3 suspected murderers after 765-km, ten-day chase…
September 25 20909 -- Never underestimate the long arm of the law and the determination of women. Superintendent Vuyisiwe Tembani, station commissioner of the Dispatch SAPS in the Eastern Cape is one such determined police-woman. Under her guidance, the four-constable task team, constables Mahle Mbixane, Monwabisi Petse, Mpumelelo Feni and Siliviano Blundin, journeyed a total of 765 km to arrest the three suspected murderers of a local taxi-owner found dead on 14 August 2009. Within ten days, all four suspects were in police custody, expected to make their next court appearance on 18 November 2009.
The story unfolded quickly from Friday, 14 August 2009, when taxi-owner Mr Sam Kundayi was found murdered in his house in Marion Street, Despatch. The 52-year-old man lived alone most of the time as his wife, a teacher, works near Mthatha. On Tuesday, 11 August 2009 his wife left for work. On Thursday, 13 August 2009 his family became concerned about him as no-one had heard from him or seen him since Tuesday. Police forced open the door and discovered that the entire house was empty. All the furniture were gone and it reeked of lighter fluid spilled everywhere. They found no sign of Mr Kundayi but returned with his family the next day to conduct a more thorough search of the entire area – and discovered Mr Kundayi’s body underneath some planks stacked under the braai area.
Superintendent Tembani rapidly set up a task team which got important leads very quickly – three constables were then dispatched to Cape Town, where they arrested a 28-year-old man near Table Mountain and confiscatied a 9 mm pistol – which, it was later established, had been stolen.
Picture: The four constables on the task team worked around the clock and by 19 August 2009 had also recovered all the stolen furniture from a secondhand shop in Port Elizabeth, here being loaded by Constable Mbixane.
The post mortem report confirmed that Mr Kundayi had been killed through drowning. Police believe that the firelighting-fluid was used to mask the smell of his dead body. A 25-year-old male suspect then was rounded up in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth during the early hours of 20 August; and on 25 August, a 32-year-old man also was arrested in Port Elizabeth.
The three men have been charged for the murder of Sam Kundayi. They are still in custody pending the next court appearance on 18 November 2009. Mr Kundayi’s family was full of praise for Supt Tembani and her team of dedicated police officers. Had it not been for their swift response, the possibility of making any arrest would have been slim. It is time that the community work closely to the Police” (sic) said one of Kundayi’s family members. source: Inspector M. Olivier, tel. cell 083 6525 826 http://www.sapsjournalonline.gov.za/dynamic/journal_dynamic.aspx?pageid=414&jid=16888
When the police isn’t there for you –
by Chris Louw, journalist, De Wildt area, greater Pretoria
2009-09-25 When the Police and the State’s sympathies increasingly are on the side of the criminals – and things certainly are beginning to look that way – then there’s a screw lose in the country, writes freelance journalist Chris Louw, about his personal experiences with crime in the De Wildt area near Brits, north of Pretoria…http://www.beeld.com/Content/In-Diepte/1978/56bd33e2942441059e189e93c24a00ad/25-09-2009-01-57/Wanneer_polisie_nie_daar_is_vir_jou
“Cash-transit robbers know that they won’t get away unpunished. The head of the police, Bheki Cele ‘s recent public threat that the ‘police will shoot to kill’, was carried out when six robbers were killed near Cullinan.
However cash-in-transit armed robberies – albeit they are very awful – still do not directly involve most South Africans. Most of the victims of crime in South Africa are people having to deal with ‘ordinary crime’ – i.e. breakins and thefts.
Here in De Wildt, between Pretoria-North and Hartbeespoort, the breakins at smallholdings have become so endemic that they often aren’t even reported to police any longer. What does it help if you know nothing further will be done about them?
The Americans’ broken-window policy’ is well-known: if windows are broken in a building and nobody fixes them, vandals will break even more windows and eventually break into the building. Punish that crime as it starts and the right message is sent. This policy has obtained remarkable success in combating crime in the New York area.
However the opposite is happening here in De Wildt. Initially there were one or two breakins a week. Then it became a nightly event and now it’s an epidemic, with mens who openly run around at nights with stolen TV-sets, radios and laptop computers, using escape routes right across the smallholders. And the local police, Acacia but especially also the Mmakau police station – no longer handle housebreakings as a crime at all.
Not one case of housebreaking has been solved in the region of Silkaatsnek and De Wildt by the policemen at Mmakau. The police apparently view their jobs as ‘done’ as soon as a declaration has been taken and all the elementary paperwork has been conducted. Actual detective work does not exist – except for one exception:
On 1 June 2009, Mr George Santos’ shop was broken into north of De Wildt. It was a strange occasion which was actually recorded on Santos’ security cameras. On this video, it can be clearly seen how nine sturdy police officers of Mmakau simply refused to enter the building. It’s also seen how Santos then borrows one of the police officers’ bullet-proof vests and walks into his shop to confront the burglars.
Nine police officers – too cowardly to do their jobs. These suspects were eventually arrested due to Santos’ own initiative and have since then already been released on bail.
And Mmakau’s police officers cannot even deliver results when the smallholding residents point them straight to the guilty parties themselves…
- For example: In August 2007, two electric pumps belonging to irrigation-crop farmer Gertjie Davel were stolen. He actually followed the pushbarrow’s trail straight to the township of Ga-Rankuwa, where the vehicle was found abandoned underneath some rubbish and the electric engines themselves were located inside a shack. “I phoned the police,’ said Davel, “They confiscated that shack resident’s identity document and a photograph of him which was inside the shack. Thus far, they have made no further progress and all my enquiries fall on deaf ears.’
- Apparently, Mmakau’s detectives find this cause a haunting puzzle…
Vir Mmakau se speurders is die saak klaarblyklik ’n tergende raaisel.
If Davel’s incident is an example of the ‘broken-window’ syndrome, the seven armed farm attacks this past month in De Wildt can also be seen as the inevitable escalation of a problem which did not get immediate attention. In each of these seven farm attacks, women and domestic workers were attacked in broad daylight and robbed at gunpoint. Not one of these robbers have thus far been caught.
The result now is that the smallholding-residents have now taken matters into their own hands, split up the area into regions of responsibility, and elected their own leaders who were placed in charge of security in their region. And more and more people are now joining the radio-network which interlinks these crime-fighters under the De Wildt Helpmekaar Company.
In emergency cases, residents now call for help over the radio-network – and within minutes, four to ten bakkies will start the search for the criminals – with considerable success: at least nine men, aged from 18 to 30 years, most of them Zimbabweans, have already been captured over the past three weeks.
But – there’s a problem: Not one of these arrested men have thus far even been charged, nor appeared in any court of law, despite the fact that the stolen goods were found in their possession when they were handed over to the police.
The Mmakau police force simply releases these arrested men without punishing them. Mmakau is an anomaly – a police station which is manned ONLY by black police officers and which is located inside a black township. However from this limited enclave, the police are supposed to look after the safety of all the white farmers in the area.
One constantly is being admonished over the radio ‘not to take the law into your own hands’. However, when the land-owners do not get access to the judicial system, conflict about this matter seems to be unavoidable. Mr Gerhard Short, who farms in Schietfontein for instance, is being terrorised by criminals for a long time now. Yet thus far, nothing has resulted from the eight cases of housebreaking, theft and illegal occupation which Short has reported at the Mmakau police station.
Early one morning, Short got into a scuffle with a group of Zimbabweans who were on the servitude of his farm without his permission. Three of these Zimbabweans were bitten by Short’s dog – and he himself was also bitten by the dog during the scuffle. Short lodged a complaint of intimidation and illegal entry at the Mmakau police station.
So late afternoon, a group of about 20 black police officers charged onto his farm and arrested the farmer – the man who’d lodged the complaint. And that night, the cops took the Zimbabweans to the hospital for ‘treatment of their bite wounds.’ Meanwhile Short, injured himself, remained uncared for in the police cells, despite a promise from police inspector Tsotseti that the white farmer would also be taken for treatment – a promise made amongst others to Mr Hannes Venter, head of the community-policing forum in the area, and the Transvaal Agricultural Union’s Wannie Scribante.
That following morning, it was the injured farmer, Shot, who appeared in the Brits magistrate’s court on charges of ‘attempted murder, pointing a firearm and assault with the intent to incur grievous damge.’ The investigating officer, one constable Motaung testified that he had no objection to granting the white farmer bail: Short, he testified, ‘had given his full cooperation, had handed in his firearms voluntarily, and is wellknown and a leading citizen in the area’.
If constable Motaung’s testimony can be accepted by the court, asks Short’s lawyer Marius Hamann, ‘why was his client locked up in the first place in the police cells?”
What was the purpose of this arrest? Apparently what was also taken into account against Short’s bail application was that another farmer in Brits, Dr Dawie Swart, would also appear the next day on a charge of attempted murder when he was accused of firing a shot at three black males – and that the Cosatu trade union had apparently arranged a protest meeting for which they had drummed up 300 people at the court house. At later appearances, these numbers dwindled to just a handful.
However Mr Zwelinzima Vavi was now able to say in public that ‘it is a daily occurrance for farmers to assault and shoot at black people’.
And it was this particular protest about another farmer, which gave public prosecutor Kekana a ‘reason’ why Short’s bail had to be set at R1,500. .. “The community,’ said Kekana, ‘was sick and tired of assaults being carried out by white farmers against black people…’
Mgistrate Rosenberg set his bail at R3,000 and ordered Short to appear on 27 october .
- Only twenty minutes earlier – that very same magistrate Rosenberg also heard a case in which 24-year-old Prim Misoma of Attenridgeville was in court for owning an illegal firearm. Misoma had been arrested in Harbeespoort, about 5km from Silkaatsnek – in the very same region where a large group of young black men had carried out seven armed farm attacks against white-owned farmers. Yet Prim Misoma was released on a mere R3000 bail…
The question one must ask is the following: how can a society function effectively when productive people are penalised whenever they turn to the police to try and get crimes solved, while suspects are handled with kid-gloves?
If the police and the state’s sympathies lie with the criminals – as it increasingly appears to be – there’s certainly a screw lose. Because what is happening in De Wildt, is not unique, according to the many news reports.
Can South Africa really afford to lose placed in our judicial system by economically-productive citizens?
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