Cops leaking guns
Graeme Hosken | 04 June, 2014 00:01
Investigators are trying to establish what crimes had been committed
with the seized weapons. File photo
A massive firearms scandal unfolding in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court is expected to lead to a wide-scale investigation involving corrupt policemen supplying arms and ammunition to criminals.
Thousands of weapons were surrendered to the police during the firearms
amnesty of 2009 and were earmarked for destruction.
On Monday last week, police raided the house of elderly Ukrainian couple
Emma Shmukler-Tishko, 65, and her husband Mark, 62, and seized 112 assault
rifles, handguns, commercial explosives and detonators stored in a backroom.
Prosecutor Talita Louw told the court yesterday that among the recovered
weapons were guns that should have been destroyed during the amnesty period.
Louw said that an R1 rifle handed in at the Roodepoort police station,
in April 2010, during the amnesty, was among the weapons confiscated from at
the couple's house in Norwood, Johannesburg.
"In May, the same rifle was officially taken out of the storeroom
for destruction. It is not known how the same firearm was found in the
possession of the applicants," she said.
Louw said investigators were checking the serial numbers of other
firearms handed in at police stations across the country.
"There are several firearms that have visible serial numbers but
are not reflected as stolen on the firearm registration system .they are still
registered and have ownership."
She said many of the other confiscated arms were, according to police
records, state-registered.
"The only inference that one can make is that there is more to this
case than meets the eye.
''Investigations are under way to determine how these firearms left the
custody of the police."
Emma Shmukler-Tishko, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was granted
R5000 bail.
She, together with her husband, and Malawian domestic worker Endi
Nkhoma, 26, face charges of dealing in, and possession of, prohibited and
unlicensed firearms, and dealing in, and possession of, ammunition and
explosives.
The latest revelation has enraged Martin Hood, of the SA Gunowners'
Association.
Hood said it was accepted that police stations were "porous"
and that exhibits were stolen or sold from police stations.
"It is obvious that the police do not have proper control of
firearms in their storerooms.
"Are police corrupt in the handling of firearms? - totally,"
said Hood.
He revealed that a pistol, handed in for destruction at Tugela Ferry
police station, in KwaZulu-Natal, was used in the killing of a Gauteng Spar
supermarket manager.
Hawks spokesman Captain Paul Ramaloko said the investigation of the
Norwood arms cache had been widened "after certain facts came to
light".
"If it's proved that these weapons were meant to be destroyed as
part of the firearms amnesty, we will hold [the police officers involved]
accountable.
"Wherever the investigation leads us, we will go," he said.
Investigators are trying to establish what crimes had been committed
with the seized weapons.
A policeman involved in the registration of firearms said: "The
police allegedly behind this could, if found guilty, be responsible for murder
or other violent crimes.
"There are meant to be strict controls around police exhibit
[stores] and strongrooms where weapons handed in or recovered are kept."
He said that only police station commanders and strongroom clerks were
allowed access to the guns in their keeping.
"There is a critical failure around the safeguarding of the
strongrooms.
"People who handed in guns for destruction did so thinking the
police would destroy them but these promises have not been kept."
He said weapons earmarked for destruction had to be destroyed.
"There is no way around this," the police source said.
