/ 30 August 2006

Criticism stings Selebi into action over DNA delays

National police chief Jackie Selebi has taken a Free State judge’s criticism on delays in DNA testing to the head of forensics, his office said on Wednesday.

”The national commissioner did speak to the divisional commissioner in charge of forensics today [Wednesday],” said Selebi’s spokesperson, Director Sally de Beer.

A Free State judge on Tuesday sharply condemned delays in DNA testing in a murder case in the province, News24 reported.

”Must we close the courts, sit and twiddle our thumbs and do everything in Africa time to accommodate a national police commissioner who doesn’t do his job?” asked Judge Arrie Hattingh in a circuit court sitting in Harrismith.

He said if someone such as former first lady Marike de Klerk was murdered, it took only two days to announce the results of DNA tests.

But in a Free State case, a DNA report was still outstanding after five months.

”Are you discriminating now between the dead?” Hattingh asked a police witness.

Hattingh is presiding in the trial of Fanie Emanuel Tshabalala (23) of Ezenzeleni, outside Warden. He allegedly killed his 65-year-old mother, Evelina Nomashalo Hadebe, by stabbing her 27 times with a butcher’s knife.

Senior Superintendent H Gouws of the forensic laboratory told the court there were 20 people to do the entire country’s DNA tests.

”We have too few people, the computer stopped working and the laboratory moved premises,” she said.

Warden police chief Captain Mthenjwa Jeremiah Kheswa testified that samples and pieces of evidence went missing from the police station after being returned by the laboratory.

Hattingh said: ”If it isn’t a captain who throws evidence away, it’s too few forensic people to do their job. Why do you dither around like this?”

The problem lay with national commissioner Jackie Selebi, said the judge.

”The words in question here are laxness and incompetence. If the police commissioner gives an order, it is carried out. What about other people? Do their cases just drag on?” — Sapa