Johannesburg - Two police officers and their two informants are facing murder and attempted murder charges for the alleged torture and killing of three suspects and mutilation of one of them in Carletonville last month.
The four accused - Mpho Matlala, Clement Madondo, Nkopodi Maphale and Lwazi Ndlangamandla - appeared in the Oberholzer Magistrate’s Court in Carletonville on Monday for a bail application. They were remanded for further investigation to Wednesday.
On April 17, Madondo and Maphale were accompanied by informers Matlala and Ndlangamandla to Duduza near Springs, where they questioned four murder suspects for a case they were investigating.
The two officers and their informers are alleged to have killed three of them, dumping their bodies in the veld.
A senior Independent Police Investigative Directorate investigator, Phumlani Ncobo, said Matlala, Maphale and Ndlangamandla arrested the four men and later met Madondo at Springs police station, before taking the four suspects to the veld in Duduza, where they were allegedly tortured until one apparently died.
They then took the dead man to Pholosong Hospital in Tsakane.
Two of the victims were put in the boot of one of the VW Polos the officers were driving and two (including the dead man) on the back seat. The man was declared dead at the hospital.
The accused and the informers then apparently wheeled the dead man back to the vehicle and devised a plan to silence the three remaining victims to hide their crime, according to prosecutor Victor Simelane.
The accused used a case that Madondo was working on in Carletonville as an excuse to drive to the area, where they allegedly dumped the first victim’s body, the court heard.
They then drove another 20km, before they took the second victim out of one of the cars. Three of them held him down while the fourth shot him with an R5 rifle, before driving off, the court heard.
The accused allegedly took the other two victims out of the boot, shot them and fled.
One of the last two victims survived and was taken to hospital by a motorist.
Police found only the legs and arms of the other man. His head and torso are still missing, Ncobo said.
The Star