Rehana Rossouw
NEIGHBOURS of Cape Town gangster killer Harry Joshua believe his crime was not that heinous: he was only cleaning up a little.
“He was just ridding the area of some of the vermin,” was one of the descriptions of Joshua’s shooting spree last May which left five young men dead and two wounded, and which earned him a quadruple-murder conviction in Cape Town Supreme Court this week.
Residents of Delft on the Cape Flats say they understand fully what drove Joshua to take his 12-bore pump-action shotgun — described by Judge Les Rose- Innes, who convicted him, as a “lethal weapon” — and mow down youths belonging to a street gang.
Up until May 23 last year Joshua was a committed family man, employed as a supervisor at a block of flats in Sea Point and planning to renovate the neat, two- bedroomed house in Welgelegen Avenue he built for his wife and two children.
All of this changed overnight when his wife was robbed at knife-point of his hard-earned weekly wage by two youths lurking near a cafe a few metres from their
Desmain Joshua phoned her husband at work and told him what had happened. She also called the Delft police station to report the crime.
Four hours later, after Joshua had returned home and eaten supper, the police had still not arrived. Joshua went to fetch a neighbour and, armed with his shotgun concealed under his overcoat and a description of the two youths, set off to make a citizens’ arrest.
The two men found five youths sitting on a sports field opposite the Joshua’s home, drinking beer. Two of them matched the description Desmain had given of the
He asked the men for his wife’s purse. One of them denied they knew anything about it and swore when he asked again. Another, cluthing a beer bottle menacingly in his hand, shouted “up” — a cry recognised by Joshua as gang slang for attack.
With the shotgun held at the hip — a stance he had practised monthly at a shooting range and at weekend paint war games — Joshua opened fire. The bullets tore through and killed Marlin Mohammed (17), Fabian Rossouw (17) and Mervin du Plessis (17). Ivan Nortjie (14), was
One of the youths ran away after the shooting started, leaping over the perimeter fence of the sportsfield and sprinting to hide in bushes across the street. Reloading his shotgun with two more cartridges, Joshua followed him. He went to a house across the street which he claimed was frequented by Hard Living gang members and asked men he found inside if a boy had run through the house.
The men denied the youth was there, and came outside to find out what the fuss was about. Joshua asked again for the youth, and when the man set his dog on him he shot the dog, killed owner of the house Abduragman Hassan, Johannes Jacobs and wounded Moses Gouws, whom he found in a room inside.
Then Joshua went to his brother’s house and reported what he had done to the police. He was arrested two days later.
“He had just had it with the gangsters, we all have just had it with them,” said one of Joshua’s neighbours this week, asking not to be identified for fear of
“Why is it that decent people have to be driven to breaking the law before the police will help? Mrs Joshua called them for help when a knife was held to her throat and when did they come? Only after five people were dead.”
Judge Rose-Innes acknowledged that Delft was plagued by gangsterism. As a member of the neighbourhood watch, Joshua’s telephone was often used by neighbours to report incidents of crime to the police. These included assaults, robbery, housebreaking, car theft and
“We plan on making Delft a decent, safe place to rear our children. The gangsters must get the message that we won’t tolerate their behaviour anymore,” said another Welgelegen Avenue resident. “I’m not saying we must all grab our guns and shoot them down, but I’m saying that after May last year, things got a lot quieter around here.”