murders case
Ann Eveleth
The special investigations team probing a spate of murders on KwaZulu-Natal’s South Coast has in the past few weeks arrested a total of 18 people relating to 10 cases involving about 30 counts of murder — showing up local detectives who had failed to make progress in these cases.
Senior police spokesman Reg Crewe said this was an indictment of the local policemen who had failed to solve these cases, some of which date back to 1994. He was speaking after the special investigations team arrested two more suspects this week, bringing to 18 the number arrested by the unit (headed by Director Bushy Englebrecht) since the investigations began in January.
Terence and Shadrack Sima appeared Monday in the Port Shepstone magistrate’s court in connection with an August 1994 attack in Mvutshini in which five people were killed. Last week the team arrested Simon Khawula, the fourth suspect arrested in connection with the 1994 murders of of nine members of the African National Congress-supporting Mzelemu family. One of the suspects, Innocent Zakhuza, pleaded guilty to the murders late last month.
Crewe said the 18 arrests related to 10 cases which included about 30 counts of murder. The team is now investigating at least 20 cases spanning from early 1994 to the brutal Shobashobane massacre on Christmas Day. Crewe said the team’s rapid successes with two-year- old cases were “a bit of an indictment on the local police investigators. It’s taken us two months to make arrests where the local guys couldn’t do it in two years. Some of the cases were less than satisfactorily investigated [initially] and in some cases we have noticed certain irregularities with the original investigations.”
He said that “in some cases there appeared to have been a lack of will” on the part of local investigators.
Violence monitors applauded the team’s successes. One observer expressed concern that “none of the police officers involved have so far been arrested”, and noted that the team had not arrested anyone in connection with the Shobahsobane massacre, which it was originally assigned to investigate.
Crewe said the team was “making good progress” on the case, but needed to build a solid case before seeking arrest warrants.
because “then we will face the pressures of
the system and its not worth it if we aren’t prepared.” Crewe added that to his knowledge, there had “not been a single politically- motivated murder on the South Coast” since the team’s arrival in January. Denying reports that the Inkatha Freedom Party had handed a list of cases to the investigation team, Crewe said the party had “still not responded” to a request from the team issued several weeks ago: “The IFP sent a list of 74 cases to the area commissioner, some of which have already been finalised in court, either through aquittals or convictions. But they have not responded to our request.” Crewe said the team was “looking at” the murders of arrested IFP Port Shepstone leader James Zulu’s family, but “we are doing this on our own initiative.”