The Independent Police Investigative Directorate is probing a murder case after a man was killed – allegedly by a police officer.
|||The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) is investigating a murder case after a man was shot dead – allegedly by a police officer – after a botched heist in Eldorado Park last week.
“We are investigating the allegation that he was an innocent person in the incident,” said IPID spokesman Moses Dlamini.
Mbantjoa Khang, 29, from Koma Koma in Lesotho, lived at an informal settlement near the Devland landfill site, where residents are mainly foreigners who claim to be bullied by police because they do not have the correct documents.
At about 9am on Monday last week, a security guard, who had collected money from a supermarket, was confronted by two men as he returned to the cash van.
Police said the guard had been held up at gunpoint and the thieves had taken a cash box from him before fleeing in a vehicle.
The guard chased the robbers in his van until they reached a veld. There the thugs abandoned their vehicle and ran away.
At that point, the crime scene was everywhere: speeding police vehicles, guns aplenty and officers hanging out of car windows in a high-speed chase. A police helicopter provided back-up.
About 12 police cars were involved in the pursuit of the cash-heist robbers from Eldorado Park to Freedom Park. The chase ended in Devland.
When the morning’s drama finally ended, Khang, who had come to SA three years ago and made a living by collecting and selling scrap, would be at the centre of it.
He was shot dead, allegedly by a cop in the helicopter hovering overhead. Cops on the ground said he was wearing a black jacket, the same as the one worn by one of the suspects.
Khang’s younger brother, Mojela, said last week he had last seen Khang just after 9am on Monday, when police were covering the area searching for suspects.
“We ran in different directions as we feared the police. They normally come asking for our passports, and if we don’t have them, then they take money from us,” he said.
Mojela said he became worried when everyone eventually returned to the area, but not his brother.
“I heard residents saying a man was shot by the cops…
We found my brother dead on the grass.
‘‘It was painful seeing him there because I knew he was killed for nothing,” said a devastated Mojela.
kutlwano.olifant@inl.co.za
The Star Africa