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Calling for the Immediate Release of 11 Anti-Gang Unit Officers
CHANON LECODEY MERRICKS ONLINE_EDITOR©®™
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The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) joins the concerned citizens and community advocates in its opposition to the continued incarceration of the eleven Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) members currently appearing in the Athlone Magistrate's Court.
We further condemn the State’s decision to oppose bail for these officers, who have been abandoned by the very system they served.
The eleven accused officers, who face charges including murder, kidnapping, and torture following the death of alleged gang member Wade Price, have vehemently denied all allegations.
Despite their years of service in removing violent criminals from the streets, they are currently being held in conditions that place their lives at immediate risk. The accused have received explicit death threats from inmates at Pollsmoor Prison, some of whom were previously arrested by these very officers. One officer reported being told by an inmate, “Ons wag vir jou by Pollsmoor" (We are waiting for you in Pollsmoor).
By opposing bail, the State is effectively feeding them to the wolves, placing law enforcement officials in the same cells as the gang members they were tasked to investigate.
We find it highly irregular that while the State opposes bail, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), the primary watchdog for police conduct reportedly recommended that the officers be released on bail of R1,000.
The State’s decision to override this recommendation is a heavy-handed approach that ignores the personal circumstances of the accused, including one officer whose upcoming wedding is jeopardised by his continued detention.
The Anti-Gang Unit has historically been under-resourced, poorly capacitated, and lacked clear guidelines since its inception in 2018. These officers have been operating within a "broken system" that failed to protect even its high-profile investigators, such as the late Charl Kinnear. It is an injustice to now penalise these eleven members with pretrial incarceration for incidents occurring in the line of duty under such strained organisational conditions.
A petition with over 1,000 signatures has already been submitted, calling for the officers' release. The petition correctly asserts that these members have been at the forefront of protecting communities from violent organised crime. The AGU was specifically formed to disorganise and fundamentally disable the criminal economy linked to gangsterism.
The EFF acknowledges the seriousness of the allegations and the need for a thorough investigation but the interest of justice is not served by the punitive detention of officers who are not considered flight risks, and who have served the public interest.
The EFF, therefore, demands that: the court grants bail in line with the IPID recommendation of R1,000; and the State fulfils its duty of care by ensuring that officers facing charges are not placed in lethal environments alongside the criminals they have arrested. Finally, the State should focus on a fair trial rather than utilising the bail process as a form of "pretrial punishment" for its own employees.
Police officials must be able to trust the system they represent, so to abandon these officers now is to send an unfortunate message that the State will not stand by those who risk their lives to secure our communities.
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