Cops in dock for drug dealing

Cape Town - 090127 - At Khayelitsha's Nonceba Hall on National Police Day there was a meeting to help organize how local organizations could assist the police in dealing with community issues. Photo by Skyler Reid.

Cape Town - 090127 - At Khayelitsha's Nonceba Hall on National Police Day there was a meeting to help organize how local organizations could assist the police in dealing with community issues. Photo by Skyler Reid.

Published Nov 4, 2015

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Cape Town - Two police constables who were involved in a swoop on a house where cannabis plants were cultivated, appeared in court on Wednesday, both charged with dealing in drugs.

Donovan Ashley Pope, 39, of the Public Order Policing Unit, and Craig Jodamus, 29, of the Grassy Park police station, appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.

Pope, alone, is also charged with corruption.

Their trial was scheduled for February 29 next year.

The charge sheet tells of Pope’s involvement three years ago in police action to combat gangsterism and drug abuse, known at the time as Operation Combat.

Pope was the driver of a police patrol vehicle, and he and three colleagues were assigned to manage the operation in the Steenberg and Lavender Hill areas.

Jodamus joined them at a petrol filling station, and led them to a house where dagga plants were being grown in a wendy house in the backyard.

They confiscated 20 dagga plants, and arrested a suspect living in the house.

The Prosecutor, senior State advocate Simon Leope, alleges that they stopped on their way to a police station, when the suspect was released after giving an unspecified amount of money to Pope, who shared it with his three colleagues.

The confiscated dagga plants were loaded into a private vehicle driven by Jodamus, but were not booked in at the police station as exhibits, as should have been.

According to the charge sheet, Pope and Jodamus both face prescribed minimum prison sentences of 15 years, if found guilty of dealing in drugs.

African News Agency

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