Gun Free South Africa heads to court over ‘negligent’ loss of police firearms
Gun Free South Africa is preparing to launch a class action against the police ministry seeking damages for the victims of crimes committed with weapons stolen from police custody.
The non-governmental organisation’s Adele Kirsten says the case revolves around the deaths and injuries caused by the guns allegedly sold by two officers.
“The police are accountable for crimes committed by senior SAPS member, Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, who confessed to selling 2000+ guns in police stores to gang leaders on the Cape Flats. Prinsloo was assisted in his criminal enterprise by his colleague 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’”.
Kirsten says the police have simply failed to take the necessary action to help reduce the number of gun deaths in South Africa.
“The SAPS must recover any weapon used in a crime by establishing a dedicated firearms recovery team that will find, analyse the weapon to determine where they came from and thereafter destroy guns used in crimes".
“The second thing that the ministry can do is to bring the firearms control amendment bill to parliament because that bill aims to significantly reduce the availability and access to gun and we know from global research and our own experience in this country that the less guns there are, the less gun deaths.”
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