Two skelme cops and a clerk from Khayelitsha have been sentenced by the Bellville Commercial Crimes Court after they were busted for soliciting a R700 bribe from a couple arrested for theft.
Siyabulela Patric Klaas and Mzimasi Soji were members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) stationed at Khayelitsha Police Station, while Phumelele Victor Solani was an administrative clerk at Harare Police Station when they took the bribe in 2016.
Advocate Ezmeralda Johnson led evidence revealing that cops received information that a stolen generator was at a shop in Site C, Khayelitsha.
On finding the stolen item on 26 October 2016, cops arrested Mzoxolo Sigwela and Siyabonga Thabatha and Sigwela’s wife, Hlombekazi Lunga Fani, was later arrested when she arrived at the cop shop.
On the day of the arrest, Siyanda Kubalo went to Khayelitsha Police Station to support Sigwela, Thabatha and Fani.
Klaas told Kubalo that Fani was crying and that they could make a plan to release the three if they paid R600 for each officer to receive R200.
Fani was released that evening after signing a statement drafted by Soji, which stated that on the day they were arrested, she was in Butterworth, Eastern Cape.
After her release, Fani and Kubalo went to Sigwela’s mother who resided at the same address to fetch R700 to pay the police officers.
After entering the vehicle, clerk Solani told Fani that she did not have to worry about going to court the next day as he would do something on the system so that Fani would not have to go to court. He told her that they were not able to release Sigwela and Thabatha. She handed Klaas the R700.
The next day, 27 October 2016, she went to Khayelitsha Magistrate’s Court to support her husband, only to be instructed to appear with her co-accused on a charge of possession of stolen property.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, Eric Ntabazalila, says each accused was sentenced to “five years direct imprisonment”.
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