‘Death squad’ cops were returning fire

Advocate Willie Hofmeyr. File picture: Alon Skuy/Independent Media

Advocate Willie Hofmeyr. File picture: Alon Skuy/Independent Media

Published Feb 2, 2016

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Durban - At least 10 of the men alleged to have been gunned down in cold blood by the Cato Manor organised crime unit in Durban were firing weapons before their deaths.

That is not according to the 27 cops accused of killing them, but according to an internal memorandum of the National Prosecuting Authority, the very organisation that is prosecuting the men.

The internal memorandum dated August 5, 2015, was part of a host of documents submitted along with an affidavit by former Asset Forfeiture Unit Head Willie Hofmeyr to all parties in the Democratic Alliance’s court application to force President Jacob Zuma to institute a commission of inquiry to determine whether Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba is fit to hold office.

The memo, titled “Legal Opinion on the Prosecution of Ms Jiba, Silverton CAS 688/10/2014”, was drawn up by senior prosecutors Jan Ferreira and Gerhard van Eeden from the Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit (SCCU) of the NPA and addressed to the current National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams and Marshall Mokgatlhe, the head of the SCCU.

While Ferreira and Van Eeden found that the decision to prosecute Jiba for fraud and perjury was “sound in law, and in line with the prescripts of the prosecution policy and the NPA act”, it also emerges from their memorandum that the evidence against the former Cato Manor cops and their former head and currently suspended KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Maj-Gen Booysen was seriously flawed.

Jiba was charged with perjury emanating from her decision to charge Booysen in 2012 for murder and corruption – a decision that Durban High Court Judge Trevor Gorven ruled in February 2014 was unconstitutional and invalid.

Not only did Ferreira and Van Eeden also agree with Gorven that there was no evidence linking Booysen to any of the murders for which he was accused, in 10 of the murder cases levelled against Booysen and the Cato Manor accused, the forensic evidence appears to support their assertion that they acted in self defence.

According to the memorandum, primer residue was found on the hands of 10 of the alleged victims of the Cato Manor unit, including the hands of kwaMaphumulo taxi boss Bongani Mkhize.

Apart from Mkhize, the memorandum lists the dead as Kapolato Ntuli, Sibongiseni Ndzimande, Sifiso Ndzimande, Thokozani Njapha, Phillip Nzuza, Dan Phiri and three other men identified only by their surnames – Bhengu, Mghobozi and Mbonani.

“It is uncertain how the prosecution team in the Cato Manor prosecution team intends to get past the evidence that primer residue was found on the hands of the deceased listed above. Unless they possess evidence that this evidence was manipulated or that it is false. We have not seen any such evidence [of manipulation].”

The memorandum goes on further to say that if there had been such evidence, it should have been disclosed to Booysen.

The memorandum then points out that in a further four cases of murder against the Cato Manor cops in which prosecutors declined to prosecute and that inquests were held and absolved them [the cops] of any wrongdoing.

“It is therefore clear that in the majority of counts in the indictment, problems exists (sic) relating to the murder charges and the unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition charges in that both J56 evidence and primer residue tests show that the accused may have acted in self defence.”

J56 evidence is that evidence from an inquest into the death of a person.

The memorandum also points out that in many cases no ballistic tests were done linking the weapons of the police officers alleged to have committed the murders to the bullets actually found in the bodies of those killed.

The accused cops face 116 charges, ranging from 28 murders, to racketeering and defeating the ends of justice.

The group allegedly carried out paid hits in the KwaZulu-Natal taxi wars. The charges cover the period 2008 to 2011.

They were arrested more than three years ago. Two of the accused detectives have since died. Another two accused had resigned from the police for jobs in the private sector at the time of the arrests.

The officers are back in court later this month.

ANA

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