Premeditated Abortion of Justice

The Congress of the People Youth Movement is disappointed by the acquittal of the seven members of the South African Police Force, who brutally killed our comrade Andries Tatane.

Regional magistrate Hein van Niekerk found the state could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. This judgment, as handed down in the Ficksburg Regional Court on Thursday, has proven how cruel the justice system can be to victims of crime, especially when it involves cases of police brutality.

South Africans watched in shock as Andries was assaulted, beaten like scoundrel and eventually shot in the chest by men who were supposed to protect him. Nicodemus Israel Moiloa, Mothusi Magano, Mphonyana Ntaje, Olebogeng Mphirime, Solomon Moeketsi, Jonas Skosana and Isaac Finger shot Tatane in the chest with rubber bullets and beat him with batons during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg. This was all caught on camera and witnessed by many community members, but despite this, the State failed to prove that Tatane was a victim of blood thirsty police.

The state failed to:

• Prove common purpose
• Identify the accused accurately
• Trace the rubber bullet that killed Tatane back to a gun
• Present credible witnesses as the two key police witnesses contradicted their own evidence
• To push the SABC to release its unedited footage of the incident

We believe that the State prosecutors intentionally aborted the Tatane case, either by presenting the weakest prosecutors to handle such a huge case or the NPA failed to properly prepare the case and as such, present credible witnesses, call more people to prove their case including looking at the SABC unedited footage to present to the court, thereby being able to properly identify the police that killed Andries Tatane.

The fact that the NPA failed to conduct background checks or discover that one of its own witnesses was no longer a police officer, due to this officer being expelled because of an armed robbery, brings mockery to the NPA.

The defense for the policemen accused of murdering Andries Tatane on the 22nd of March, rested its case without producing a single witness and labeled the NPA a failure and wasting public funds. The State prosecutors have been found to be constantly ill prepared and unaware of what is happening with their own case. They had no sense of direction. The State postponed the case a number of times because it was not ready.

The behaviour of the State prosecutors revealed that the State wanted to collapse the case, and that the State was not ready to prosecute some of its own. The police witnesses were not willing to point out their own people, nor provide the records of the weapons issued the day Andries died.

Our NPA has again failed the people of South Africa and the family of Andries Tatane and thus intentionally aborted the case and allowed 7 murderous policemen to walk free.

We can only ask questions, is our justice fair? Is the NPA prepared to protect the people against the police brutality or will they continue like the Apartheid government and sweep police brutality under the carpet, together with the blood of those killed at the hands of the police?

Statement issued by Bongani Mahlangu, COPEYM Spokesperson, April 1 2013

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