Apartheid cops want you to pay
SECURITY BRANCH TRIO ACCUSED OF KILLING MK CADRE DEMAND THAT STATE FOOT THEIR LEGAL BILL
THE apartheid-era policemen accused of murdering Umkhonto we Sizwe cadre Nokuthula Simelane 33 years ago want the state to foot their legal bill.
Advocate Johann S Gaum, who is representing three of the former Soweto Security Branch members, told journalists his clients want the state to pay their costs like it did for Jackie Selebi.
Now deceased, Selebi was national commissioner of the SA Police Service (SAPS) when he stood trial for corruption charges in 2010. He had to repay the SAPS R17.4-million after he was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Selebi had not paid back the money when he died in January last year.
Willem Coetzee, Anton Pretorius, Frederick Mong and Msebenzi Radebe, the former-officers charged with Simelane’s disappearance and death, requested a postponement of their trial at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria yesterday.
Their legal representatives and the state prosecutor indicated to the court that they had agreed that the matter be postponed to September 20.
This was on ground that three of the accused are embroiled in an argument with the SAPS over settlement of their legal fees.
They needed this resolved before the trial could resume.
Gaum said after the brief appearance that his clients have petitioned Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant-General Deliwe Suzan de Lange to pay their fees.
But, according to Gaum, De Lange has declined the application.
Gaum said they have now given her a chance to reconsider her decision and are awaiting a reply.
“There’s no appeal procedure in a case like this, [so] we asked her to reconsider her position and we have given her some time.
“If the reply is negative then … we will then ask this court to review that decision,” Gaum said.
He said this demand was on the grounds that the charges against the accused “emanate from the time when they were on duty as policemen”.
“All policemen, when they commit a crime on duty, the police usually pay their [legal] costs. If the accused lose the case the police usually get it back.
“But normally, like in Selebi’s case – he was a fraudster, a corrupt policeman – they paid for him.”
Police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said he would check if the three had indeed applied for payment of their fees.
“We’ll have to look at the merits [of their application]. Each case has to be treated on its merits.”
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced in February it would be prosecuting the four as they were allegedly involved in Simelane’s 1983 kidnapping, torture and murder.