“Foreigners getting away with crimes”

‘Illegals behind many criminal acts’

Police in Gauteng have lamented the number of undocumented foreign nationals who appear to elude the clutches of the criminal justice system.

This came out yesterday during the annual provincial crime statistics presentation before the Gauteng portfolio committee on community safety.

Provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Deliwe de Lange said undocumented foreign nationals were making policing increasingly difficult in the province.

She said undocumented foreigners were usually behind the trio of crimes that includes robbery, car hijacking and house robbery.

“You will find that one person has been arrested 10 times for the same offence, but because they sometimes give false names and get bail it becomes difficult to find them after being released on bail.

“I am not saying it’s specifically them, but [in the] majority of our cases you find that it’s illegal foreign nationals behind aggravated crimes. We are monitoring arrests and we have found that one person can be arrested 20 times for the same crime, but cases are withdrawn,” she said.

However, community safety committee member Jacob Khawe said the number of dockets that went unaccounted for, leading to charges being withdrawn, could be blamed on police officers.

He argued that statistics reflected in the presentation could be inaccurate due to the number of dockets that are closed. A total of 24 528 cases of hijackings, house robbery and business robberies were reported in the 2016/2017 period in Gauteng.

This marked a 10.6% increase from 22 173 cases which were reported in the previous financial year.

De Lange said there was a 6.7% increase in the murder rate from 3 842 in the 201520/16 period to 4 101 in the period under review. “We have implemented strategies to improve on the statistics,” she said.