Twenty-two charges of rape were laid against police officers between April 2005 and March this year, the Star newspaper reported on Monday.
This, according to an Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) report, was the highest such figure in the past six years.
Over this period the ICD recorded no rape convictions of police officers, according to the police watchdog’s spokesperson Moses Dlamini.
”Whether consciously or unconsciously, certain police officers are covering up for their errant colleagues … and are sometimes very uncooperative,” the Star quoted Dlamini as saying.
In June this year the ICD arrested a Limpopo police station commander accused of raping a 25-year-old woman in 2003. The local police apparently refused to obey a year-old National Prosecuting Authority order to do so.
A 39-year-old Cape Town police officer was currently in court for the alleged rape of an 18-year-old while she was in police custody on September 18. The alleged rapist was released on R1 000 bail.
In another case, three metro police officers were currently out on R2 000 bail each for the alleged gang-rape and indecent assault of a Johannesburg mother, the Star reported. – Sapa