Cop identified as robber
Builder Alpheus Mogawa refused to get down from the scaffold, until the man ordering him to do so showed him two guns.
This man, the witness told the Pretoria Regional Court yesterday, was the accused, police warrant officer Silas Gafane.
Gafane, who has been suspended, pleaded not guilty to charges of robbery, possession of firearms and ammunition, pointing firearms at Mogawa and his co-construction workers, and of assaulting them by tying the builders up with cable ties.
A Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes court orderly at the time, Gafane was arrested in April last year with Constable Marcus Phetla of the Mamelodi East police station. Both men were denied bail. Phetla died last year while in custody. Domestic worker Precious Maborodze was also arrested, but charges against her were withdrawn.
Mogawa testified yesterday that he and two others were doing construction work at the Erasmia home of Munawar Gafoor on April 14 last year. At about 9am two men came to them, asking for work.
When Mogawa replied that he could not help, one of the men told him to get down from the scaffold.
“I refused. Then one of the men lifted his shirt, showing me two firearms tucked in his waistband.”
Mogawa identified Gafane as the armed man, saying the other attacker wore blue overalls.
The three workers were tied up and forced to lie on their stomachs.
Not long after, they heard a woman scream and an alarm going off. Gafoor testified that when she opened the door for her domestic, an armed man, dressed in blue overalls, stormed into the house.
He pushed the two women to the main bedroom. “The man spoke English, saying: ‘I don’t want to kill you. I need cash.’ I gave him jewellery and about R2 000 cash.”
The attacker called someone on his cellphone and soon after another man joined them. “I asked them not to hurt us, saying there was more money in the front of the house. As they moved there, I locked myself up in the bedroom.”
Security guard Jacques van der Berg, after receiving a panic alarm, rushed to the address. He caught Gafane after a chase and handed him over to the police.- Pretoria News
(Proceeding)