If not properly managed and controlled, the firearms in police custody could easily end up in the wrong hands.
Therefore, the FF Plus has asked the Gauteng Police Commissioner, Lt. Gen. Elias Mawela, to urgently investigate the disappearance of sixty firearms from an armoury at the Welbekend police station.
In 2019, police members executed a raid on a firearms dealer in Pretoria North and seized 528 firearms.
According to reports, a warrant for the search was not provided, and the firearms were taken away by the police and the Hawks.
Over the past three years, no charges were filed against the firearms dealer. After a settlement was reached between the police and the firearms dealer, it was discovered that sixty firearms had disappeared.
Firearms disappearing from a police armoury is unacceptable. There also exists the possibility that these firearms ended up in the hands of criminals, who could use them to commit robberies, murders, or farm attacks and murders.
The FF Plus asked Lt. Gen. Mawela to conduct a thorough audit of the firearms currently in police custody in Gauteng.
If weapons that serve as evidence in criminal cases were to disappear, chances are that those cases will be struck from the court roll.
The FF Plus also asked the Commissioner to investigate the unlawful raid on the firearms dealer and the police members involved in executing it.
