Police sued after cop kills ZCC priest
August 7 2013 at 10:11am
By ZELDA VENTER
By ZELDA VENTER
Pretoria - The taxpayer will have to
foot the bill for an on-duty policeman who shot dead a priest of the Zion
Christian Church after accusing the clergyman of having an affair with his
wife.
Inspector Frans Duba took an unmarked
police vehicle and drove to the Seshego home of Elia Morudu in Limpopo on
December 24, 2001.
He was on standby duty at the time and
shot Morudu with his private firearm.
Morudu’s widow, Pauline, and his four
children are claiming damages for loss of support – no amount given at this
stage – from the police.
They told the Pretoria High Court that
the minister of police (in his official capacity) should be held liable for the
priest’s death, as Duba was on duty at the time and drove to the house in an
official police vehicle.
The court had to determine whether
Duba, in killing the priest, acted in his capacity as a police official or not
and whether the minister should be held responsible for his actions.
The widow testified that she met Duba
for the first time when he came to their home, in a police vehicle, to tell her
that her husband was having an affair with his wife.
The woman said she was not aware of
such an affair.
But a few days later the policeman
again arrived at their house – this time firing shots at her husband, who was
still in bed.
The bullets were flying through the
bedroom window and she ran to the neighbour’s home, she said. She saw Duba
outside. She also recognised the white police vehicle.
When she returned to her house, she
found her husband lying in a pool of blood.
One of the children, Portia Khumalo,
testified that she heard her mother screaming in the bedroom and saw her father
locking himself in the bathroom.
Khumalo then saw Duba climbing through
the bathroom window, looking for her father.
The priest ran back to the main
bedroom, with the policeman following him, she said.
Khumalo said she heard a number of
shots and saw her father lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
A captain at the Polokwane Local
Criminal Centre – where Duba worked as a fingerprint expert – testified that
Duba was on standby duty that day.
After the shooting, Duba returned to
the barracks where he lived, bleeding from his arm.
He told a colleague that he had just
shot a man.
According to the captain, Duba did not
have authorisation when he drove the vehicle to the house to commit the murder.
He said the vehicle was to be used only for official police duties.
Acting Judge DS Molefe said it was
common cause that Duba, at the time of the incident, was a policeman, that he
was on standby duty (in another district) and that he was given a police
vehicle to perform his duties.
“Although Duba was not allocated the
Seshego district (where the victim lived) to render standby services, I am of
the view that this does not remove the connection of the crime and his
employment. This is because at the time of the commission of the murder, Duba
was on standby duty.
“Although Duba’s murdering of the
victim had nothing to do with his official duties, I am of the view that there
is a sufficiently close link between his act for his own personal gratification
and the business of the police,” the judge said.
He added that Duba had previously also
used an official vehicle to confront the priest and commented that it was
“disturbing” that the SAPS failed to notice that he used the vehicle for that
purpose.
“It is evident that the police failed
to exercise reasonable control or supervision over the unauthorised use of
state vehicles,” the judge said.
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