A senior police officer has been shot dead near Stanger in what is believed to have been a deliberate ambush targeting the officer, according to police.
Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said the officer was on Wednesday following a convoy of prisoners being escorted to Stanger to stand trial when the convoy was ambushed.
The victim was Superintendent Zethembe Chonco, the station commissioner for the Kranskop police station. He also headed the province’s taxi violence unit.
Mdunge said the prison transport vehicle as well as another police vehicle were allowed to pass before the gunmen opened fire on the station commissioner’s car, killing him. A shootout ensued and another police officer was critically wounded, while one of the attackers was killed.
The wounded officer was airlifted to a Durban hospital. Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said he sustained multiple gunshot and shrapnel wounds to the leg.
It was not known how many attackers there were. The spent cartridges of AK-47 assault rifles were found at the scene.
Chonco had been investigating taxi violence in the Maphumulo area, which is midway between Kranskop and Stanger. He had a string of successes in his investigations, and one source said he had the habit of ”eliminating the big taxi hit men from the scene”.
Most recently, according to a source, Chonco’s work had led to the arrest of a number of suspects in a case where a member of the police’s Empangeni dog unit, Inspector Wayne Saunders, was killed.
Nonkululeko Mbatha, spokesperson for provincial safety and security minister Bheki Cele, said Cele would be issuing a statement shortly. — Sapa