Police officers
held in crime swoops
Nowhere to run: Rochelle Roberts
takes a fingerprint reading with the new MaxID identification system
Two Eastern Cape police officers and
four from other provinces have been arrested for allegedly being linked to
criminal activity.
Hawks spokesman Brigadier Hangwani
Mulaudzi said all the arrests on Friday were linked to separate cases.
The officers cannot be named until
they appear in court.
A 30-year-old constable from Mthatha
was arrested for the murder of a 23-year-old woman on New Year’s Eve. The
policeman allegedly had an affair with the victim’s mother and the victim told
her father. “The father confronted the wife who in turn informed the constable
and an assassin was hired to eliminate the deceased,” Mulaudzi said.
“On Friday, the organised crime unit
team arrested the alleged hitman who spilled the beans on the alleged involvement
of the constable.”
The alleged assassin was found in
possession of an unlicensed firearm and had been linked to another murder.
In a separate incident in Port
Elizabeth, a 45-year-old warrant officer was arrested after allegedly causing
an accident with a police vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
Mulaudzi said the officer was on
duty at the time and also tried to flee the scene. “[He] was restrained by
traffic officials until his arrest by police,” he said.
Other officers who were arrested include
a 32-year-old constable based in Durban who allegedly tried to extort money
from a suspect to quash a 2008 murder case and three constables in North West
for bribery.
In all the cases, the officers will
appear in various magistrate’s courts today.
-Gareth
Wilson
