Johnathan Paoli
Police Minister, Bheki Cele, told the Police Committee on Wednesday, that Deputy President Paul Mashatile was present in the convoy consisting of seven vehicles, but was unaware that two of the cars had stopped and engaged in a violent confrontation with civilian passengers of another vehicle.
Cele, the National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) were making presentations and discussed the incident and the public outrage that followed, in Parliament’s Police Portfolio Committee in Cape Town on Wednesday.
Cele said Mashatile was not in either of the two vehicles seen in the video making rounds on social media, since the attack in Johannesburg last month.
“The DP was in the convoy, he was not at the crime scene where two of his cars pulled off to deal with that matter. Talking to him, he realised at home that there were two cars that peeled off, realised at home [and] did not know until he was told later that that incident had happened,” Cele said.
Cele said the eight officers arrested since the incident, would have to attend trial and explain the reasons they assaulted those men.
The protection services officers are facing assault charges as well as an internal disciplinary process.
There has been increasing calls from MPs for police officers to wear body cameras as a measure to ensure more effective surveillance of police-civilian interactions, considering the attack wasn’t an isolated incident of police brutality.
Masemola, said getting officers fitted with cameras was an idea that the South African Police Service is considering going forward.
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