Port Shepstone – Police officers from the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) in Port Shepstone, assisted by crime intelligence, the tactical response team, and public order policing unit officers have arrested six men in connection with the murder of a police officer, the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal said on Sunday.
Two off-duty policemen stationed at Msinsini police station were accosted by intruders and held at gunpoint at their home in the Makhoso area in Mthwalume on Wednesday night, Captain Simphiwe Mhlongo said.
The men robbed them of their service pistols and six cellphones. In the process they shot dead Constable Siyabonga Mbele, 28. They then took his vehicle and fled the scene. The vehicle was later recovered in the Umlazi area the following day.
During the arrest of the suspects the two police service pistols taken during the robbery were recovered, as was an unlicensed 9mm pistol suspected to have been used in the commission of the crime.
The recovered firearms would be sent for ballistic testing to determine whether they were used in the commission of crime in the country. The six arrested suspects, aged between 18 and 22, would be charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, and theft of a motor vehicle.
They would appear in the Hibberdene Magistrate’s Court on Monday, Mhlongo said.