Police have clammed up about the Jeppestown attack in which 12 people — including four police officials — died on Sunday.
No further details about the case will be communicated until further notice, said Gauteng police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
This is ”to allow the investigating team to concentrate on their investigation”, she said.
”A statement will be issued if new details on the case become available,” she added.
Earlier on Wednesday, police said they are still considering whether to release the names of the eight robbers shot dead, once their identities have been established.
Martins-Engelbrecht said not all of them have been identified yet.
The four slain police officers have been named as: inspectors Frederick ”Frikkie” van Heerden (32) and Nzama Victor Mathye (49), both of the West Rand dog unit; Sergeant Gert Schoeman (30), of the West Rand emergency response service; and Constable Peter Francois Seaward (31), of the Johannesburg dog unit.
The Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court ordered on Tuesday that no names, addresses or identifiable pictures or video footage be published of 11 men who appeared there in connection with the attack, or of another five, still in hospital, who were placed on the roll in absentia. They will appear again on July 27.
Police, supported by the prosecution, cleared the public gallery of everyone except court officials and the police for their appearance — even though, according to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, only a magistrate or judge may order a case held in camera in response to a formal application by the prosecution.
At least 10 police officers with rifles and handguns blocked the doors to the court as the first nine men laboured up the steps from the holding cells, their ankles shackled and their wrists cuffed with plastic cable ties.
The room was packed with uniformed and plainclothes police officers and officials from other courts in the building.
The media were allowed into the courtroom only after making representations to the magistrate, and then only on production of a press card. They were told to sit in the back rows of the court, ”for your own safety”.
Proceedings were conducted with the help of three translators in Shangaan, isiZulu and Cindau — a Mozambican dialect containing some Portuguese words.
Police have so far refused to reveal the nationalities of the eight men killed in the house. It is understood at least three of them were Mozambicans.
Some of the shooters are thought to have been armed with AK-47 assault rifles.
The bloody clash in Jeppestown erupted when police probing a robbery at the Pick ‘n Pay in Honeydew on Sunday morning were led to the house where the gang was allegedly to rendezvous — by a robber arrested on the scene.
Apart from the 12 dead, two police officers were injured. A Pick ‘n Pay customer was hurt during the robbery.
The survivors inside the house gave themselves up, crawling out into the custody of a huge group of police officers, many of whom sobbed openly.
A memorial for the dead police officers will be held at the Little Falls Christian Centre on the West Rand at 10.30am on Thursday. — Sapa