Cop in illegal guns shock

[caption id="attachment_90709" align="alignright" width="300"] MULTIPLE CHARGES: Former Gauteng, policeman Christiaan Prinsloo, left, is escorted into the dock at the Bellville Magistrate's Court where he made a brief appearance on racketeering, corruption, attempted murder and murder charges relating to guns he allegedly sold to Cape gangsters Picture: ADRIAN DE KOCK -[/caption]

Legal first as colonel accused of selling seized weapons to gangs charged with three murders

A TOP cop who allegedly sold confiscated firearms and ammunition to gangsters has been charged with the murders in which they were used.

It is believed to be the first time that someone who sold a gun later used in a murder has been charged with the crime in South Africa.

The case, involving a former Gauteng police colonel, should serve as a warning to those selling guns to gangsters in Port Elizabeth’s violenceplagued northern areas.

Christiaan Prinsloo, 55, who was in charge of several police firearm storage facilities in Germiston, appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court in Cape Town yesterday charged with three gang murders and 12 attempted murders.

He is facing a total of 28 charges, including racketeering, corruption and theft.

He was granted R20 000 bail after state advocate Shareen Riley told the court he was cooperating with police. The guns and ammunition sold were to have been destroyed.

Gunfree SA spokeswoman Adele Kirsten said: “We hope the case will expose the nature and extent of illicit gun-trafficking in South Africa. We need stronger gun laws to reduce the risk of these things happening.

“It is ironic that [today] is International Gun Destruction Day.”

Prinsloo, who had 35 years’ service, was first arrested at his home in January after a two-year investigation by Western Cape police.

Several hundred rounds of state-owned ammunition were discovered at his house.

He appeared in the Vereeniging Magistrate’s Court after his arrest and was released on R5 000 bail. He resigned soon afterwards.

On Monday, Prinsloo was rearrested on the new charges. The initial case has now been withdrawn and the charges added to the latest case in Cape Town.

According to the state, Prinsloo and others formed a criminal enterprise in 2007 that stole firearms and ammunition scheduled for destruction and sold them to Cape Flats gangs.

In affidavits handed in at the previous appearance, investigating officer Captain Clive Ontong told how Cape detectives had found that the serial numbers of some weapons they had confiscated from gangsters had been erased.

Ballistic tests showed these weapons had been handed over to the Gauteng Firearms and Liquor Control Unit and the police system showed they had been destroyed.

Police had monitored movements at the SAPS storage facilities close to the next destruction date. They then found that Prinsloo had removed heavy boxes from a safe and taken them to his house in Vereeniging, which they searched soon afterwards.

The three murders that ballistics have linked to the stolen guns include the murder of Gregory Isaacs in Belhar on December 29 2013, the murder of Damian Juries in Delft in May last year, and of Sipho Dyani in April 2013.

Martin Hood, of MJ Hood and Associates, a specialist practitioner in firearms law, said the case was reflective of “systematic problems in the legislative and administrative control of firearms”.

As far as he knew, nobody who sold a gun later used to kill someone had previously been charged with murder. -Shanaaz Eggington