Six police officers at the Booysens police station in southern Johannesburg have been arrested on charges of corruption and assault, police said on Wednesday.
This follows a recent exposé on the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s Special Assignment programme in which police officers were caught on camera accepting bribes to release illegal immigrants.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Chris Wilken said a high-level investigation team was subsequently established.
The team had been mandated to conduct “pro-active combating operations in the area to expose and arrest other SAPS [South African Police Service] officers involved in corruption,” said Wilken.
Wilken told the Mail & Guardian Online that the six officers were arrested on Tuesday.
“They’re currently in court and all six of them were identified,” said Wilken.
The officers appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.
Though the police officers were identified visually on the Special Assignment exposé, the visuals had not been enough to charge them, said Wilken.
“The video footage was irrelevant to us,” he said.
The team investigating the six police officers made contact with some of the illegal immigrants featured in the Special Assignment exposé and “held an identikit parade” where each of the six police officers were identified by the immigrants, said Wilken.
“We hope from the criminal charges that they’re found guilty, and that they are then dismissed from the police,” he said.