The Police versus Johann
Burmeister
23
July 2014, 10:55
Johann Burmeister, as defendant,
couldn’t have wished for a better prosecution… why… because the prosecution was
that hopeless. The 14 people who turned up to support
‘Burmie’ left without a doubt that he was being set-up and lynched… and that,
thankfully, the prosecution’s rope was thinner than string.
Burmeister was a long-serving, well
respected, Knysna cop until he was kicked off the police force earlier this
year and suspiciously charged with stealing a laptop from evidence. Their
possible motive is the biggest question, one which has disturbed many citizens.
In ‘Is Johann Burmeister a Good Cop Being Destroyed?’,i gave you
the background to the situation and explained why i have chosen to support him.
Despite this being his fourth court
appearance, this was only the first day of his trial. While he’s waited
anxiously to clear his name the past 8 months, he’s struggled to keep his house
and family safe, relying on goodwill from his supporters (over 400 on his
‘Stand by Burmie’ Facebook group) to get them through. It was undoubtedly with
a juxtaposition of nerves and relief that he sat in the dock.
The Knysna SAPS seemed to lose their
case with their first witness, Sergeant Maurice Grootboom, who had made an
affidavit implicating Burmeister. Grootboom was distinctly uncomfortable under
an onslaught of questions from the highly capable, defence advocate, Eduard
Bruwer. For hours, he forced Grootboom to stop evading only to poke holes in
the eventual answers.
Maurice Grootboom claimed to be in
charge of the CSE (Community Service Centre a.k.a. the charge office found as
you enter a South African police station) when he allowed Burmeister to take
the laptop from evidence without signing it out. He claimed that he’d been busy
so had, on trust, allowed this to happen. He then forgot to check it was back
in but had realised it wasn’t when Warrant Officer Appels, in the next shift,
had called to query him. Thereafter, he forgot about it… until 3 months later,
in February 2014, when he signed the affidavit that had eventually led to him
being the State’s witness.
Burmeister has claimed that he took the
laptop, which he had recovered from thieves, to a local computer shop who
identified whose computer it was. With that info, he then contacted
RadieDippenaar, the supposed owner, who stated that it was in fact his son’s
(Jandre). Burmeister then returned it to Sergeant Carmen Coetzee at the Knysna
Police Station.
Read Part 2, which covers what happened in
court, contradictions by Grootboom and the mysterious appearance by a member of
SAPS Intelligence.
