The arrest of six Pagad G-Force members may not be a breakthrough after all, writes Marianne Merten
The twin brother of Yusuf Jacobs – who died after he was shot by police at a People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) demonstration last month – was among five men arrested outside Prince Alfred in the Karoo on Wednesday.
The former Gauteng co-ordinator of Pagad was also arrested. Police confiscated several firearms found in their vehicle.
At his funeral, Yusuf Jacobs was described as a paramedic who had attended Pagad marches to provide humanitarian assistance. Neither he nor his brother was suspected of involvement in armed violence.
Police this week hailed the arrests of the five, and six Pagad G-Force (the group’s armed wing) members, on Tuesday as a major breakthrough in their anti- urban terrorism campaign, Operation Good Hope.
Loegmaan Sapat (36) of Delft; Faizal Kossaim (37) of Belhar; Faizal Steyn (22) of Delft; Moegammat Isaacs (23) of Delft; Nafrudien Gamaldien (35) of Delft and Cassiem Arens (21) of Delft appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. The case was postponed until February 11 and their bail application will be heard on February 12.
By late Wednesday, the police had toned down their initial claim that the arrests were a breakthrough for Operation Good Hope. Acting provincial media liaison officer Wicus Holtzhausen said they would have preferred that much of the information, particularly the fact that the men had video footage of police stations, had not been made public.
Western Cape Anti-Crime Forum representative Keith Benjamin said while people were waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the police investigation into the suspects, the high levels of expectation could be dangerous.
“There have been several `major breakthroughs’ in the past where high- profile people of Pagad had been arrested. The cases have been thrown out of court for a lack of evidence or some technical reason, the cases were botched or the investigations have not been done properly,” Benjamin said.
He said it would be a major breakthrough if someone finally was convicted in a court.
Pagad national co-ordinator Abdus Salaam Ebrahim told a Cape Town radio station that the arrests were not as watertight as they might seem at first. He said only one of the weapons found in their vehicle – a 357 Magnum – was illegal.
He said there may be “problems with the paperwork” of the guns signed over to the six men, but that did not mean the guns were not legally acquired in the country.
The arrest of the six G-Force members could have come straight out of a Hollywood crime thriller. It started with an anonymous telephone tip-off, followed by closed-circuit cameras in the Cape Town city centre tracking a suspicious- looking bakkie and its six occupants, and ended with a car chase along one of city’s highways.
Police have described the six as “heavy guys – not the ones likely to be found running around at marches”.
Police have stored the video footage found with the men in a safe, saying it could become a crucial part of the investigation into whether the six could be linked to other attacks.
However, a police source said this fitted into the G-Force modus operandi of gathering information through intelligence before hits.
A senior police officer said they had identified key actors in the ongoing violence a long time ago. “We know who they are. Its just a matter of time before we get to them.”
The officer said the investigators would expand their probe beyond the immediate charges of illegally possessing unlicensed firearms, including a fold-up shotgun and an allegedly stolen 9mm pistol.
Pagad claims it was never involved in pipe-bombings. The group’s representative, Cassiem Parker, told a Cape Town radio station that it was too early to jump to conclusions. He said many Pagad members had been arrested in the past only to have the charges against them dropped. Parker said “breakthrough arrests” only seemed to apply when Pagad members were involved. The arrest of two men in possession of a pipe bomb in Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, last Friday was almost ignored.
“This leads us to believe that Operation Good Hope should have been called Operation Pagad,” said Parker.
The “let’s cross fingers” sentiment that the arrest of the six senior G- Force members would translate into a solid court conviction was echoed throughout police ranks this week. Seven detectives have been assigned to the investigation.
Late last year, Western Cape police said they believed a group of about 20 highly trained men were behind most of the hits on suspected drug dealers’ homes, the murder of at least 11 high- level gangsters during 1998 and various other pipe- bombings and drive-by shootings.
Police at the time said they suspected G-Force cells had been restructured even more tightly after they realised undercover agents had infiltrated at least the lower ranks of the “hit squads”.