FARM MURDERS REQUIRE DEATH PENALTY
"The cruel murder of the Potgieter couple and their three year old daughter on their farm in Lindley is proof that the death penalty should be re-introduced for murderers. It is clear that ordinary jail sentences do not deter murderers; that is why the murderers left the arrogant message 'We killed them. We are coming back'. Only the death penalty will reduce the spat of murders in South Africa ," Mr. Pieter Groenewald (MP), the chief spokesperson on Police for the Freedom Front Plus said (see Volksblad report).
"What is very worrying is that farm murders are increasingly being perpetrated by murderers who act in a group. In April of this year, farm attackers acted in groups of between ten to sixteen members in Polokwane and Carolina . This creates a Zimbabwe situation.
The minister of Police, Mr. Nathi Mthethwa, said at a meeting of AgriSA earlier this year that the Police regard farm murders as ordinary crime. The time has come that the minister has to wake up and declare farm murders as a priority crime. The minister and the government shies away from farm murders, precisely because there is a strong element of racism and politics involved," Groenewald said.
"Farmers in South Africa is the group in which the most murders take place, on average 313 in every 100 000 and then only do murders of law enforcers, such as members of the police, where the figure is 153 in every 100 000 follow. The committee which investigated farm murders in 2003 at that time already found that the chances that a victim of a farm attack being injured is two times more than this happening to a victim of a transit-heist. The chances that a victim in a farm attack could die are three times higher than it is for transit heists. If the Police can view transit heists as a priority crime, so much more should they view farm murders as a priority," says Mr. Groenewald.
Statement issued by Mr. Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus Spokesperson: Police, December 3 2010
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