Police kidnapping nightmare

“We are so afraid they will come back.”

So says the wife of a resident of Khutsong after police members almost kidnapped him from their home recently.

According to her husband Sipho (not his real name), he was at home with his family in Khutsong Extension 4 at about 16:00 when a white Nissan bakkie with four men stopped in front of their house on 13 March.Two men got out and knocked on the front door.

“They said they were from the police and showed us their cards. They said, ‘Come with us. We have some of your things at the police station’,” explains Sipho.

He got into the bakkie with the police officers, two of whom were armed. Instead of driving to the Khutsong police station, they stopped at the small tuck shop next to the hardware store to buy airtime. They then turned away from the police station towards the bridge at Extension 5 over the Carletonville/Welverdiend road.

“I started getting anxious as it did not seem right. I asked what was happening and told the police they were going the wrong way.
‘Voetsek. Keep quiet,’ one of them told me,” says Sipho.

Although the police officers started handcuffing Sipho, his luck turned when his brother, who stays in Extension 5, suddenly approached from the front in his vehicle. Sipho’s quick-thinking wife had called his brother just after the police officers had driven off with him. Sipho called to his brother and he blocked the police van, which seemingly caused the police officers to panic.

They tried to turn onto the first slipway to the right on the bridge, positioning their bakkie head-on towards motorists driving onto the bridge from the Welverdiend side.

They realised their mistake, made a U-turn and drove back in the direction where they came down the bridge towards Khutsong. When they reached the stop at the bottom of the bridge, Sipho grabbed the opportunity to jump out of the bakkie and run for his life.

“I ran into the little shop at the corner. Members of the Khutsong crime prevention unit came and escorted me and the police who had tried to kidnap me to the Khutsong police station,” says Sipho.

They immediately told the police members on duty what was going on, and the Khutsong police members arrested the kidnappers. Two suspects, police officers from the Sedibeng area, appeared in the Khutsong Magistrate’s Court on March 15. As far as could be determined, they were off duty when the kidnapping occurred.

The case was postponed to Wednesday, April 10, when the suspects were each granted R5,000 bail. Their colleagues who drove them to Khutsong were not charged.

They will appear in court again on Friday, April 26.

“These people should never have got bail. Sipho and his family are not safe now because they know where they live. The family should get witness protection. This is a failure of the justice system,” says an opposition party campaigner, Mr Lindo Qayiso.

Qayiso and other residents pointed out the several police vehicles with supporters of the accused who had come to witness the proceedings with concern.

As far as could be determined, this was the third case where police officers from another area had kidnapped a resident from around Khutsong from his home.