R14m safe theft: case scrapped
Posted 08 December 2006

Johannesburg - The case against four men who are alleged to have stolen about R14m from a safe at Benoni police station was scrapped from the roll on Thursday because the state could not decide if it should prosecute.

The four suspects, Richard Sibuyi, Samson Baloi, and two police inspectors, Serious Mthembi and Paul Kgoedi, were allegedly part of a gang that broke into a safe at the East Rand unit for serious and violent crime in May this year.

They were alleged to have stolen R14m, which was part of a haul of R72m in foreign exchange robbed from an aircraft at OR Tambo Airport in March. Their bail money of R10 000 was returned to them on Thursday.   Two other suspects, Tshepo Phillip Mathe and inspector Khomali Robert Mashele, were murdered by unknown assailants shortly after they were freed on bail.

It is not known if these murders are related to the case. Two state witnesses in the case also died from unnatural causes while in police custody.

Cornel Pretorius, chief prosecutor of Benoni magistrate's court, said magistrate Mitzi Schutte had scrapped the case from the roll on Thursday, because the director of public prosecutions could not decide if the prosecutions should proceed.

Beeld, 8 Dec 2006, Schalk Mouton