Former Cape cop jailed for corruption

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 Jul 30, 2015

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Cape Town - A former police constable based at Khayelitsha was jailed for six years on Thursday, for corruptly requesting and receiving R500 from an arrested suspect.

He was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.

Mjatya Bukani, 35, appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, who said a suspended prison sentence, as suggested by defence counsel Andre Pienaar, was inappropriate. She said a sentence of correctional supervision, involving house arrest only, without imprisonment would also be too lenient.

“Such sentences were in Bukani’s interests, but not in the interests of the community,” Sonnenberg said.

Bukani initially faced a charge of extortion for demanding the money in order to release a suspect arrested for the illegal possession of abalone.

Instead, he was found guilty of corruption.

The case arose from an incident in December, 2010, when Bukani searched a taxi driver’s vehicle, and found a bag of abalone in it.

Whilst taking the suspect to the Khayelitsha police station, Bukani demanded money, to secure the suspect’s release from custody and the return of his confiscated taxi and abalone.

Bukani was offered R300, but it was not enough, and he then accepted a second offer of R500.

The magistrate said the court’s function was not to “be popular” with the sentences imposed.

She would also have suggested a non-custodial sentence, had she been Bukani’s lawyer, she said.

She told Bukani: “Your function was to uphold and enforce the law but, instead you played games with your job and threw away your career for R500.”

She said greed had prompted Bukani to resort to corruption, and added: “You thought you would get away with it.”

She agreed with prosecutor Xolile Jonas that a non-custodial sentence would have sent out the wrong message to society.

She added that Bukani had ruined his good name as a police official.

She said Bukani’s wife, also a police official, was based with him at the Khayelitsha police station when the incident happened, and it had caused her humiliation and shame.

She said corruption undermined the country’s young democracy and provided a breeding ground for criminals.

“Corruption may be likened to cancer, as it destroys the moral fibre of society,” she added.

Sonnenberg also said Bukani had shown no remorse during the proceedings, and that corruption involving the police could not be tolerated.

ANA

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