Inquiry computers stolen
Commission offices broken into at weekend
Offices of the state capture commission of inquiry in Johannesburg were broken into with laptops stolen during a burglary at the weekend, forcing the commission to beef up security.
This is a second criminal incident to hit the offices after a bullet came through its library window last week, the commission revealed yesterday.
The inquiry’s spokesperson Rev Mbuyiselo Stemela confirmed to Sowetan yesterday that the offices were broken into at the weekend and that computers were taken.
Stemela said even though they were not certain about when exactly the break-in took place, they suspected that it could have been in the early hours on yesterday morning.
“We can confirm that there was a burglary and that two computers were stolen but we will be releasing a media statement about the incident later on,” Stemela told Sowetan.
The commission’s secretary Prof Itumeleng Mosala said yesterday that they were not taking the incidents lightly.
“We don’t want to be dramatic – it could be petty criminals – but this is the state capture commission. What is here is all sensitive... we do not take chances about it,” Mosala said.
“We have called the police and asked them to take it seriously,” he added.
He said it was not the first criminal incident to happen at the commission in the last two weeks at their Parktown offices.
“We’ve had a gun bullet coming through the window of the library last week; we decided not to be dramatic about it. We called the police, they looked at it and that case has been registered separately.”
Mosala said they have decided to be careful and beef up security at the premises.
“We are not suspecting anybody or anything. We are simply saying we must protect what’s here, which the public has paid a lot of money for.”
Mosala added that private security, crime intelligence and cyber crime police investigators were at their offices yesterday after having responded to the incident after being called at 6am.
Witness Mogamad Slamdien told Sowetan’s sister publication TimesLIVE that police were on the scene and had sealed off access to the Hillside House building.