/ 25 November 1999

TOP KWAZULU COPS FACE PROSECUTION

CRIMINAL proceedings are to be brought against two senior policemen in KwaZulu-Natal in connection with their investigation into violence in Richmond in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions said on Thursday that charges would be brought against Director Eric Nkabinde and Captain Sipho Thompson Mbhele. In April this year, the directorate appointed a special investigation team to take over investigations from Nkabinde and Mbhele. Mbhele faces a charge of perjury, alternatively defeating the ends of justice, related to testimony given by him on the Richmond tavern massacre in July last year. Mbhele and Nkabinde would also face a charge of obstructing the course of justice, for allegedly trying to arrest a person on the basis that his firearm was linked through ballistic tests to the tavern massacre. The ballistic evidence allegedly proved exactly the opposite.