Second suspect guilty of Spes Bona murder
Court finds pupil gave shooter the gun to kill Glenrico Martin
BRACKENFELL has become a new criminal hotbed said residents after police seized 4 600 cartons of smuggled cigarettes with an estimated value of R1 million in a local warehouse.
Sean McCleland of Brackenfell’s Community Police Forum say criminals are targeting the suburb, with vehicle thefts and burglaries becoming increasingly common.
Police said they had discovered the smuggled cigarettes after raiding a warehouse in Silver Park in Okavango on Wednesday night.
The illegal cartons had been stashed in a false compartment in a safari tour truck that had crossed the Zimbabwean border into South Africa the previous day.
“Brackenfell is becoming a hotbed for criminals,” McCleland said. “Because they get busted in the CBD, they are now coming our way.
“They know people living in the area are high income earners.”
He said the most common crimes were thefts of vehicles and housebreakings.
“No-one would have suspected the safari truck they transported these cigarettes in, and it’s easy for them to rent warehouses because we never suspect anything.”
Police spokesman LieutenantColonel André Traut confirmed that members attached to the Western Cape K9 unit responded to reports of a truck en route to the Brackenfell industrial area allegedly transporting smuggled goods.
“At approximately 8pm members entered a warehouse... where they found the truck and two suspects,” he said.
The officers found a false compartment between the floor and luggage storage area, stretching the entire length of the vehicle and filled with smuggled cartons of cigarettes.
“The two suspects, a 39-yearold Zimbabwean and a 30-yearold Jordanian national who has been living in South Africa for eight years, were arrested,” Traut said. The men are due to appear in court soon.
However, Mccleland felt there was a lack of police resources in the area.
Babs Naidoo, of the South African Revenue Service, said it had received information of the illicit cigarettes once the vehicle was in Cape Town.
TWOYEARS after Glenrico Martin, 18, was shot in the head and killed outside his school in Athlone, a second suspect has been found guilty of his murder. Martin was shot outside Spes Bona Secondary School in Athlone in 2013 in an apparent gang-related killing.
Yesterday, Glenrico’s father Michael Martin and mother Henrietta attended proceedings in the Western Cape High Court where Jevon Snyman was found guilty of Glenrico’s murder. He was also convicted for the illegal possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition.
Snyman was acquitted on a charge related to the Prevention of Organised Crimes Act (Poca) for his alleged involvement with gangs.
Martin said he wanted the matter to be finished.
When asked if the matter had given him the closure he said: “Just a little bit.”
Henrietta Martin said she had been re-living the memory of the fateful day.
“It’s like it happened yesterday… there’s not a day I don’t think about him,” she said, describing Glenrico as having been a “friendly child”.
The family acknowledged that their son would sometimes be seen with gangsters who they described as “his friends”.
“It’s Manenberg. It’s a gang area,” said his father.
Glenrico was shot in the head on May 15, 2013, and was taken to hospital, where he was declared dead.
Snyman was at the school, identified by witnesses and seen wearing a school uniform and a backpack, even though he was suspended at the time. He was arrested the next day. In handing down judgment yesterday, Acting Judge Lister Nuku found that the State had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt that Snyman had contravened sections of Poca.
He found, however, that based on the evidence of one witness, Snyman had passed the firearm to Wilston Stoffels, the shooter, therefore acting in common purpose in the murder.
Stoffels had previously been sentenced to 24 years for pulling the trigger and shooting Glenrico dead. He admitted to the killing, being in possession of the illegal firearm and ammunition and to gang-related charges.
During the trial it emerged that Stoffels and Snyman were members of the Young Americans and the G-Unit gang.
Snyman has a G-Unit tattoo on his right shoulder and it is believed that the shooting had been a “revenge attack”.
Stoffels was sentenced to 24 years for the murder, seven years for gang offences, three years for illegal possession of a firearm and a year for illegal possession of ammunition. The sentences will run concurrently. At the time of the incident Stoffels was 18 and Snyman 19-years-old.
During the trial the State called eight witnesses and surveillance camera footage was viewed.
Yesterday’s case was postponed to July 24 for sentencing proceedings.