A group of Cape Flats families, along with Gun Free South Africa, have lodged an application at the Western Cape High Court for a class action suit against SAPS for failing to secure firearms meant to be destroyed which have landed in the hands of skollies.
The announcement of the pending court action against Police Minister Bheki Cele and his department was made by Gun Free SA (GFSA) on Wednesday, in a joint press conference with the aggrieved families who have lost loved ones as a result of the conviction of former cop Christiaan Prinsloo. He had been accused of selling guns to Cape Flats gangs.
Prinsloo was handed an 18-year jail sentence in July 2016 after pleading guilty in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court to 11 charges of racketeering, corruption and money laundering and supplying gangs with guns.
He told the court that he and some of his colleagues stole 2 400 firearms meant for destruction from the Germiston SAPS armoury and sold them for over R2 million to skollies.
Four years later, videos and documents leaked to the Daily Voice proved that he had been released on parole and continued living in his hometown in Vereeniging.
Now, the families along with GFSA and Norton Rose Fulbright law firm have lodged papers, intent on claiming damages resulting from the theft and supply of guns in police stores to criminals by two senior police members.
GFSA director Adèle Kirsten said the founding affidavits include SAPS’ own records which detail how Prinsloo and a colonel Naidoo colluded from 2007 until the former’s arrest in 2015, to steal over 2 000 guns and an unknown amount of ammunition awaiting destruction at the confiscated firearms store in Pretoria.
She explained that between 2007 and June 2016, Prinsloo’s guns were used in the commission of at least 2 784 crimes in the Western Cape.
This includes 1 066 murders, 1 403 attempted murders and 315 other crimes.
“In 2016 from the internal SAPS report, it was reported that there are still over 1 000 Prinsloo guns that were not recovered,” said Kirsten.
“They are continuing to circulate. I am afraid to say there is no evidence to suggest that recovery is a priority. There are hundreds of families out there that could join the class action.”
Mitchells Plain mom Melanie Kiel is on board to get justice for her 17-year-old son Dudley Richards, who was murdered in Tafelsig after witnessing a shooting.
The woman said nearly 10 years after her son was hounded by gangs allegedly carrying a “Prinsloo gun”, there had been no movement on his case.
“He worked on the taxis and on his way home he asked a neighbour for water,” Kiel added.
“The gangster shot that guy and when they saw that Dudley witnessed the murder they first shot him in the arm, and then as he fell down they shot him in the head to make sure they silenced him.
“I joined the class action because Prinsloo was walking around but he had blood on his hands. Him and the police.”