Charge cop with murder – Mpofu
A POLICE officer in charge of the operation that left 34 mine workers dead in Marikana, North West, should be charged with the murder of 16 of the men.
Advocate Dali Mpofu, representing the families of the injured and arrested mine workers, submitted this before the Marikana Commission of Inquiry yesterday.
“I put it to you that you gave instructions to kill. Your instruction would attract a charge of murder. I am going to recommend that you are charged with the murder of at least 16 people shot at scene one,” Mpofu said to Brigadier Adriaan Calitz.
Mpofu also accused Calitz of conducting an indoctrination session with police involved in the shooting. Calitz allegedly complimented police officers during a parade in Marikana two days after the shooting, saying the operation had been 110% successful.
Mpofu said during cross-examination that Calitz ’ s address to the policemen was actually “schooling the officers”.
“The message is you were schooling these members on self-defence. This is because you had been told that a commission of inquiry was to be set up. You said they must tell the truth about the shots fired because crime scene experts had been there and had retrieved cartridges.
“You were saying to them, there is objective evidence against you. You must tell the truth because it is a good thing to do, because there is evidence against you,” Mpofu said.
Calitz had told the officers during a parade that they should not panic because they had done nothing wrong. Mpofu referred to the evidence of Lieutenant-Colonel Solomon Vermaak, who previously testified that during the police dispersion and disarm exercise on August 16, a group of striking miners had regrouped on the other side of the koppie where 18 of the miners were shot dead. He said it was clear the group was not going to surrender their weapons.
Mpofu said Vermaak had testified that Calitz had given an order to engage, but said it seemed that they [police] did not hear it. Calitz agreed to giving the order, saying to police “engage, engage”.
However, Calitz denied giving instructions to the members of the tactical response team. He said they had their own commanders.
Calitz said he thought the police officers had acted in self-defence.