Cape Town - Gun Free South Africa (GFSA), an NGO committed to reducing gun violence, has given notice to the Minister of Police of class action proceedings to claim damages arising from deaths and injuries allegedly resulting from corrupt and negligent firearms management.
The NGO said they are holding police accountable for crimes committed by senior SAPS member Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, who confessed to selling over 2 000 guns in police stores to gang leaders on the Cape Flats.
Prinsloo was recently released on parole after serving a short stint of an 18-year prison sentence for flooding the Cape Flats with weapons.
Prinsloo had been convicted and sentenced in 2016 on 20 charges ranging from racketeering, corruption and money laundering relating to the smuggling and dealing in lethal weapons worth around R9 million with Cape Town gangsters.
GFSA, in a statement, said: “Prinsloo was assisted in his criminal enterprise by his colleagues, Colonel David Charles Naidoo. As of 2016, SAPS records that ‘Prinsloo’s guns’ have been used in at least 1,066 murders: 187 children were killed by criminals using a ‘Prinsloo gun’.
“GFSA has given notice to the Minister of Police of class action proceedings in which damages will be sought from the Minister arising from deaths and injuries due to the actions of Prinsloo and Naidoo.”
The SAPS has yet to comment on the matter.
Cape Flats Safety Forum secretary, Lynn Phillips, said: “We welcome the initiative taken by GFSA. As a partner of GFSA, we have witnessed too many killings with guns in our communities across the Cape Flats and feel that government, as SAPS, has a pivotal role to play in the safekeeping (of) these guns that get stolen.
“We are currently sitting with the aftermath of the impact of these stolen guns. We are asking (about) 15 guns stolen from Mitchells Plain. Similarly, at Bellville South Police station, 18 guns (were) stolen. So we asking, how many of these guns was retrieved to date and how far is the investigation pertaining finding those perpetrators and if found were they internally charged and dismissed?” said Phillips.
GFSA said the class action taken seeks to claim financial relief for damages arising from police corruption and negligence in managing firearms in SAPS’ care and on account of the Minister’s vicarious liability for the actions of his employees.
Cape Times