Crack down on the whole killing chain

IT sets a precedent which is long overdue in our trigger-happy nation – supply someone with an illegal firearm, which is later used to kill someone, and you will be charged with murder.

The ground-breaking decision to charge a former top police officer, who allegedly sold confiscated firearms and ammunition to gangsters with three murders in which they were used, deals a neat blow to the gang world.

These gangs have hijacked entire communities around the country, including in Nelson Mandela Bay where the toll of vicious gang wars in the northern areas climbs daily.

It is believed to be the first time murder charges of this kind have been laid in South Africa. It will serve as a stark warning to those who think they can simply dip their toes in criminal activities – which ultimately cost lives – and profit from those crimes, that they are just as guilty as those who pull the trigger.

There can no longer be any beating around the bush when it comes to ruthless killers and the many others lurking in the shadows who aid and abet them but who often escape arrest and prosecution because of their anonymity.

They are all part and parcel of the same set-up of death mongers who end up terrorising their neighbourhoods as they conduct their unrelenting drug wars and end up taking innocent lives like that of Gelvandale’s 10-year-old Damian van Rooyen. His Sunday school friends and family had to bury him last weekend.

Fortunately, the murder charges against former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, who was in charge of several police firearm storage facilities and allegedly sold weapons meant to be destroyed, will send out a strong message.

There are no excuses for being part of this country’s crime plague – no matter how indirectly. We can only hope that arrests of those hiding in the darkened wings like Prinsloo increasingly gather momentum.