A metro police officer has been implicated in an attempted truck hijacking case that left two SAPS members injured in a shoot-out in the early hours of Friday morning, last week.
He is one of six suspects arrested in connection with the crime, which includes a former SAPS member.
The truck was later recovered in Kempton Park on the same day still containing its full cargo.
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According to the Benoni City Times, Benoni SAPS acting cluster commander, Brig Poobalan Subbiah said Benoni’s cluster priority task team arrested an active EMPD officer in Lindelani informal settlement in the afternoon on the same day.
This after two Crystal Park police officers, aged 29 and 35, were wounded in a shoot-out with a group of gunmen at the corner of High and Thomas roads, Benoni.
The constables had been pursuing a RAM courier truck carrying cellphones in Benoni, after it was hijacked on the N12 highway, at the Delmas turn-off in Mpumalanga.
SAPS’s Facebook page reported that two vehicles, a VW Golf 7 and a Mercedes Benz, were following the truck and were suspected to be escorting it.
“While police were summoning for back-up, they were shot at by the occupants of a Mercedes Benz. They also returned fire. An unknown number of suspects jumped out of the Mercedes Benz and fled the scene on foot as it drove away from the scene,” the Facebook page said.
One of the officers was wounded in the leg and the other in the shoulder.
Later on the same day, the metro police officer was arrested at the informal settlement, carrying an unlicensed 9mm firearm and ammunition.
It also emerged, Benoni City Times reported, that one of the six suspects arrested is a former police officer, who was stationed at a Johannesburg police station before being dismissed.
The former policeman is currently out on bail in connection with an R11-million heist of a cigarette truck, said Subbiah.
Five firearms, including three rifles found in the vicinity of the shoot-out and two revolvers that were confiscated during follow-up investigations, were seized.
The six suspects will face charges of truck hijacking, attempted murder and possession of unlicensed firearms.
