A top-level investigation is under way at the Maitland police station, where four firearms mysteriously disappeared from a detective branch safe.
Well-placed police sources said senior police officers at the West Metropole office were investigating the disappearance of a shotgun and three handguns.
The shotgun is an official weapon, while the three firearms were privately owned by a policeman who was shot dead in Mitchells Plain. The police inspector was shot dead last year and his personal weapons were being kept in the safe.
The sources said Maitland police suspected that the firearms were stolen on Monday, possibly in the early hours of the morning.
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When detectives arrived at their offices first thing on Tuesday, the safe was open and the firearms were missing.
Police members searched the police station and the premises in vain.
They even checked a safe in the charge office several times.
An emergency meeting was held to find out what had happened to the firearms.
Senior police at Maitland then alerted the provincial office and a theft case docket was opened.
The missing three handguns would have been kept in the safe until the murder case had been finalised in court.
A team of senior investigators are taking statements from several police members at Maitland.
Fingerprint experts have been combing the entire police station area in an effort to link it to possible suspects.
The latest theft of arms from a police station follows another major theft of weapons from a police station that caused a stir at the time.
Former Cape Town gang boss Rashied Staggie is serving 13 years in prison for the theft of arms from a police storeroom in Faure.
In March this year he and seven other men were convicted of stealing some of the arms that had gone missing from the Faure police base in June 1998.
Among the hardware stolen from the base were 20 R5-rifles, 12 R-1 rifles, 18 shotguns, eight pistols and almost 5 000 rounds of ammunition.
- This article was originally published on page 5 of Cape Argus on November 18, 2005
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