A Mitchell’s Plain woman has testified that a policeman offered to destroy dockets related to drug cases against her at a beach braai, in exchange for R50 000.
|||Cape Town - Police investigation dockets involving a Mitchell's Plain woman were to be destroyed in a beach braai fire, a court in Cape Town heard on Friday.
The woman, Sumaya Kennedy, a key witness in the case, testified at the trial of two police officials, Jonathan Jerome Plaaitjies, 42, of the Mitchells Plain police station, and Morne Albert Britton Fasser, 30, of the Lentegeur police station, both in Cape Town.
Both have pleaded not guilty to two charges of extortion, one of corruption and one of defeating the ends of justice, in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
Kennedy told the court: “Plaaitjies told me he and Fasser would get Rooikrantz fire wood for a beach braai, and they would then show me how to burn a docket in the fire.”
According to the charge sheet, Kennedy was the accused in a number of drug-related criminal cases. Prosecutor Xolile Jonas alleges that in July, 2014, Plaaitjies informed her that he had spoken to Fasser, the investigating officer in the cases, and that “something could be done to help her”.
Kennedy told the court that Plaaitjies and Fasser had often visited her home in drug-related investigations. At a secret meeting with Plaatjies and Fasser, Plaaitjies said the duo could help her, but that it would be costly.
She said she knew of another resident in “the same business as me”, whose house had been confiscated. She added: “I didn't want to lose my house as well, and offered Fasser R10 000 cash and said it was all I had.”
Later they informed me of a woman who had control of my dockets, who was willing to assist for R20 000, and soon afterwards they said there was a second woman who was also willing to help, but that she also wanted R20 000.
Kennedy said she did not have that sort of money, and she approached a senior police officer for advice when Plaatjies started nagging her for the additional R40 000. This resulted in an undercover police operation, in which Kennedy was given the R40 000 by the police to give to Plaaitjies and Fasser at a pre-arranged meeting.
After giving them the money and she, in turn, was given a single docket, she returned to her car, and placed her right hand on her head as a signal to the police investigators to confirm that the transaction had been completed.
The intended beach braai never materialised, she told the court.
The case continues on May 10.
African News Agency
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