Ex-cop jailed over gun licences
June 11 2015 at 09:14pm
By ANA Reporter
By ANA Reporter
Independent
Media
Pretoria - A former police captain who had been based at Pretoria
Central police station has been sentenced to 13 years by the Pretoria
Commercial Crimes Court after being convicted on 30 counts of corruption.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said Lawrence
Mamogobo, a former designated firearms officer at the Pretoria Central Police
Station, was last week sentenced to 13 years in prison after he was found to
have fraudulently sold various falsified firearm training certificates, firearm
competency certificates and firearm licences.
He was one of the 20 people who, amongst them, included two brigadiers,
two colonels and 12 admin clerks, who were suspended by the SAPS management
when allegations of corruption in the issuing of firearm licences at the
police’s Central Firearm Registry first emerged about three years ago.
At the time of his conviction, Mamogobo had already been dismissed from
the SAPS during the disciplinary process, which happened in 2013. His dismissal
followed that of Brigadier Mathapelo Mangwani, the former section head of
Central Firearm Registry.
National commissioner of the police, General Riah Phiyega, ordered the
proper cleaning of the section after allegations of corruption surfaced about
the manner in which applications for various forms of firearm licences were
being handled.
“Once the SAPS began to serve some of the accused notices of intention
to suspend them, four of them, a lieutenant and three admin, clerks opted to
resign.”
Mamogobo is the third person to have been dismissed in connection with
the central firearm registry debacle, and one of seven people who parted ways
with the SAPS over this.
“Of the initial 20, only three are still on suspension while undergoing
disciplinary hearings while the remainder have been given warnings and, in some
cases, acquitted and are back at work,” Naidoo said.
“We believe that last week’s sentence will serve as a necessary lesson
to anyone in position of authority never to betray trust bestowed upon them by
the laws of this country. Mamogobo, and others before him, are the primary
reason the SAPS is always severely criticised by the public and the media,
something that should aggrieve the honest members in our ranks as they are
often depicted in same light,” said Phiyega.
ANA
