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- AfriForum holds that the police's failure to act on the findings of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) report on the murder of detective Charl Kinnear points to a cover-up.
- The report identified senior police officials as having played a role in the Anti-Gang Unit detective's assassination in September 2020.
- Kinnear was slain after his protection detail had been withdrawn several months previously.
Lobby group AfriForum has launched a broadside at the Police Ministry and top cop Fannie Masemola, claiming that their failure to act on findings of the Independent Policing Investigative Directorate (IPID) - relating to the murder of detective Charl Kinnear - points to a cover-up.
According to the group, an investigation by IPID identified some senior police officials as suspects, for allegedly playing a role in the decision to withdraw Kinnear's close protection detail.
The veteran Anti-Gang Unit detective was probing key actors in the criminal underworld, and had received threats on his life. He was protected by members of the AGU, who at one point arrested a man in possession of a hand grenade outside Kinnear's house.
At the time of his assassination, his protectors had been withdrawn.
"Despite commitments that Police Minister Bheki Cele made at the crime scene, that if police officers were involved in the murder, 'heads would roll', nothing has happened. IPID's preliminary report was completed in September 2021," AfriForum spokesperson Barry Bateman said in a statement.
In a meeting arranged and facilitated by Cape Forum, advocate Gerrie Nel, head of the Private Prosecution Unit met with Kinnear’s widow, Nicolette, where he was formally briefed to act on the family's behalf. The unit penned a letter to Cele, National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola, and IPID executive director Jennifer Ntlatseng.
READ | AfriForum's private prosecution unit to help investigate murder of detective Charl Kinnear
"In the letter, Nel refers to Masemola's claim at a press conference earlier this week, that he is waiting for yet another report related to the Kinnear case," said Bateman.
The letter reads:
Nel added that suspicions of a cover-up are reinforced when looking at the farcical handling of the IPID report.
The report was widely leaked and placed before Parliament's police portfolio committee, and then retrospectively classified.
"Indubitably, such amateurish conduct indicates a desperate scramble, which we suggest is a continued cover-up of police incompetence and conceivably embarrassing police criminality."
Before his death, Kinnear had been investigating several high-profile cases involving underworld boss Nafiz Modack and which implicated police officers.
Modack is currently before court, accused of masterminding the assassination.
