/ 11 July 2000

GOVT WANTS COP ACQUITTAL PROBED

JUSTICE Minister Penuell Maduna wants the Independent Complaints Directorate to probe the acquittal of a police officer who set a man alight in a police cell. Andre Pietersen is in a critical condition in hospital after he was burned in the Wolseley charge office in the Western Cape. Police officer Christiaan Myburgh told the Wolseley Magistrate’s Court that although he doused Pietersen with petrol to scare him, he did not think that the lighter he used was working. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, wants to establish whether there are grounds for an appeal by the state.