Kinnear assassination: Police running devious cover-up campaign
The South African Police Service’s (SAPS) deliberate failure to act according to the recommendations of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) report regarding the assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear, indicates a deceitful cover-up campaign that is being driven from the heart of the SAPS. The civil rights organisation Cape Forum maintains that Kinnear’s assassination testifies to serious, deeper criminality within the police.
Cape Forum instructed AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit last Friday to investigate the murder of the then head of the investigation department of the SAPS’ Anti-Gang Unit on behalf of his widow, Nicolette. The head of AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, advocate Gerrie Nel, meanwhile, earlier this week (Wednesday 4 October) sent a letter to the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, the National Police Commissioner, general Fannie Masemola, and IPID’s Executive Director, Jennifer Ntlatseng, exposing how the police as well as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) have scandalously failed to bring to justice individuals whose actions enabled the tragic assassination of Kinnear. Nel points out that not only did the police do nothing to prevent Kinnear’s murder, but that in the past three years absolutely nothing has been done to hold police members accountable for his murder.
Although the preliminary IPID report, which was leaked to the media in 2021 and has since been classified under questionable circumstances, makes clear recommendations regarding the criminal prosecution of police officers involved in Kinnear’s murder, nothing has come of it. This despite the fact that Ntlatseng stated in October 2022 that the report implicates certain senior police members.
Cape Forum now demands, through advocate Nel’s letter, that Cele must give urgent answers regarding the police’s disciplinary action against the identified police members. Furthermore, Cape Forum also demands feedback regarding the progress in the investigation of the culpable homicide case that Kinnear’s widow brought against the police members who were responsible for the senseless withdrawal of her husband’s protection shortly before his death.
“Kinnear’s assassination was a bitterly tragic event, but the fact that the police not only looked the other way but is now clearly making every effort to cover up complicity in this, is shocking. This emphasises that criminality has now penetrated the SAPS to the highest level and is resulting in the rot of an institution as a whole. It is regrettable that a widow and family have to accept that police management is indifferent to a man who sacrificed his life for an ideal that is now being trampled and destroyed by the very institution he served,” explains Heindrich Wyngaard, executive chairperson of Cape Forum.
Meanwhile, the organisation has also strongly rejected Masemola’s statement made at a media conference on Tuesday, in which he expressed expectation of a further investigation report into Kinnear’s murder, and labelled it as an inexcusable attempt to undermine and coverup the original IPID findings and recommendations.
