Cape Town - Family, friends and police officers are expected to gather at Gearing Road in Bishop Lavis on Thursday to celebrate the memory of assassinated senior police officer Charl Kinnear.
Kinnear, 52, a top detective with the Anti-Gang Unit, was assassinated outside his home in Bishop Lavis on Friday. He had been working on a number of high-profile cases involving some of the province’s top gang bosses.
The chairperson of the Bishop Lavis community policing forum, Graham Lindhorst, said the service would be held at about 4pm.
SA Communist Party provincial secretary Benson Ngqentsu said the assassination suggested a symbiosis between the criminal underworld and top police officers.
Ngqentsu said the assassination was a brazen act of bravado by the “untouchables” in the criminal underworld. “We wish to reiterate that the criminal networks must be dismantled, including their rotten cop underlings, for there can never be peace and security as marauding gangs and rotten police roam free in our society.
“Until the policing and justice system strengthen the capabilities of crime intelligence and create an integrated detective system, dedicated detectives such as the fallen Lieutenant-Colonel Kinnear will be sacrificed at the altar of organised criminal syndicates,” he said.
Forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, whose organisation Forensics for Justice has offered a reward of R1 million for information leading to the conviction of those behind Kinnear’s murder, said his killers must be brought to book.
Public Servants Association spokesperson Reuben Maleka said there had been an increase in such crimes, which showed the levels to which criminals would go to ensure their interests were protected.
“We call on the heads of the police, National Prosecuting Authority, the judiciary, and the Cabinet to put measures in place to ensure that this does not happen again, and that the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to book,” he said.
SA Policing Union (Sapu) general secretary Tumelo Mogodiseng said Sapu would closely monitor the progress in the investigation promised by the police minister, and would not allow a cover-up to take place. He said drastic measures were required to curb the killing of police officers.
Cape Argus