CAPE TOWN - A Nyanga police officer has been suspended, pending his appearance in court on Tuesday on charges that he raped a 29-year-old in the back of an SAPS van.
This as the Portfolio Committee on Police on Monday condemned the alleged incident, and welcomed the officer’s arrest and suspension.
Provincial police on Monday said that management had summarily suspended the officer who was charged over the weekend.
“The arrest follows an Ipid (Independent Police Investigative Directorate) investigation into allegations that the police constable had raped the man who was in a police van.
“Due to the seriousness of the allegations against the 31-year-old police constable, an expeditious internal disciplinary process into the fitness of the member to be in the SAPS has been initiated,” police spokesperson Novela Potelwa said.
Western Cape provincial commissioner Thembisile Patekile said he viewed the allegations in a serious light.
“It is incidents like these that adversely impact the relationship between police and communities. That is why it is crucial the investigations undertaken by Ipid get to the bottom of this. Police are expected to be protectors of communities,” Patekile said.
Ipid said that last Thursday, the male victim was at a Jet store at Nyanga’s Junction shopping mall where security suspected that he wanted to steal clothing.
Police were called and the constable is alleged to have taken the suspect to a gravel road before making him watch porn on a cellphone and sodomising him.
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Tina Joemat-Pettersson said: “The relationship between the SAPS and the community at large is harmed by such abuses of power by some rotten elements within SAPS. We therefore believe that the suspect must be prosecuted to set an example to other police officers inclined to perpetrate such heinous acts.
“While we don’t want to influence the internal process in any way, the committee has since its inception spoken strongly against the abuse of power and authority by the very people that are supposed to enforce the law. The police members are not the law. They must enforce the law and are also subject to the law,” she said.
Cape Times