LEBOGANG SEALE
A STUDENT constable accused of shooting dead a Soweto teenager was not supposed to have been carrying a firearm because he was mentally unstable. Nor was he supposed to be among the officers who raided the youth’s shack in Bramfischerville.
Now, four police officers from the Dobsonville police station will have to explain to a court today why Sipho Mbatha, 41, was allowed to carry the semi-automatic rifle that discharged as he was conducting a body search on Thato Mokoka, 16.
This emerged in the Roodepoort Regional Court yesterday during Mbatha’s bail application. A senior investigator from the Independent Complaints Directorate, Leon Naidoo, testified that granting Mbatha bail was risky. This, he said, was because a designated firearms officer at the police station had made a statement prohibiting Mbatha from carrying a firearm as he was mentally unstable.
Mbatha, Naidoo said, had attempted suicide in December.
He added that the firearms officer had also issued an order to restrict Mbatha, a sector patroller, in the community centre. Yet again, the commander on duty on the night of the incident had overruled him, and let Mbatha join the police officers who raided Thato’s shack.
Naidoo’s evidence prompted magistrate Elize Smith to remark: “The court should call the person who issued the accused (Mbatha) with the rifle. This would help clarify the allegations that the accused is unstable.”
Mbatha was arrested on February 17, three days after Thato was shot dead. The court heard that Thato had, hours before he was murdered, confronted another boy in the township. The boy, Naidoo said, was part of a three-member gang that had stabbed and robbed another teenager of cash.
When he confronted the boy, Thato had “something like a gun” around his waist. Alarmed, the boy’s parents reported the incident at the Dobsonville police station.
It was then that Mbatha and the police officers, acting on information from the other youths and residents, went to raid Thato’s shack. On arrival, the teenager’s relatives had showed them his shack in the backyard.
The police officers then dragged Thato out and ordered him to lie on his abdomen while they searched the shack looking for guns. But no guns were found.
“Other police officers heard gunshots. When they looked at (student) constable Mbatha, they saw him throw down the gun and walk away from the deceased. He then ran away,” Naidoo said.
The court heard that the semi-automatic rifle, which can empty a magazine containing between 30 and 35 bullets in seconds, had not been in safety mode when the shots were fired.
Mbatha said he could afford bail of R8 000.
The hearing continues.