The case against the police officer who allegedly accepted a bribe to assist a murder accused to escape from the Ga-Rankuwa Magistrate’s Court, has temporally been withdrawn after he resigned from the police.
Moabi Ga Rankuwa, a Warrant Officer at the time, allegedly helped Nkomo Romeo Mathebula (33,) also known as ‘Buster’, to escape. Mathebula was facing two charges of murder following the death of an elderly couple in 2011.
He however, escaped from the Ga-Rankuwa Magistrate’s Court in May this year while appearing on charges unrelated to the double homicide. Buster was allegedly involved in an attack on an elderly couple who lived on a smallholding in Grootvlei.
Katrien (62) and Chris Jooste (63) were busy dropping of meat in Soshanguwe Block A, when five robbers attacked and shot them.
Katrien was presumably busy writing out an invoice when the robbers shot Chris in his stomach and Katrien in the left side of her chest.
Katrien died on the scene and her husband on his way to Dr George Mukhari hospital.
Buster was the last of five suspects to be arrested for the murders.
Provincial police spokesperson of the police, Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, said Ga Rankuwa had resigned from the police service in June this year and therefore was no longer stationed at the Ga-Rankuwa court. The criminal case for accepting a bribe to help Buster escape had therefore been temporary withdrawn.
Dlamini said a case will be re-opened once Mathebula was re-arrested for the murder of the Jooste couple.
The granddaughter of the couple, Chyree Jooste said she was still mourning the death of her grandparents and she had no doubt the alleged murderer would be back behind bars soon.
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