Task team for KZN taxi killings
Police have formed a taxi violence task team seeking to arrest those behind a recent spate of shootings in Durban.
|||Durban - Police have formed a taxi violence task team and appealed for information that could lead to the arrest of gunmen who killed a survivor of the taxi rank shooting in the Durban CBD and three other men on Sunday evening.
Five other people were seriously injured in the shooting and were hospitalised.
Blondi Herrman, an off-duty Mvimbeni Security company employee, and three unidentified men were gunned down in Lindelani D-section, near KwaMashu.
On Wednesday morning, last week, a pedestrian, a security guard from the same company, Nkanyiso Dludla, and a man suspected to have been involved in the shoot-out were killed.
Police arrested 23 men and recovered 25 firearms ranging from R-5 rifles, 9mm pistols to shotguns.
On Friday, 12 of the arrested suspects, including Herrman, were released by the Durban Magistrate’s Court because of a lack of evidence.
After Wednesday’s shoot-out, Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC, Willies Mchunu, said the scramble for lucrative taxi operating routes had led to the deaths at the Brook Street taxi rank.
He said the gunfight was between Sonke, a local taxi association, and Zamokuhle, a taxi association operating between Durban and the South Coast.
In a statement yesterday, Mchunu said the killing of the four and injury of five on Sunday was under police investigation. The names of the other victims have not been released.
“It is believed that Herrman was among the 23 suspects who appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday in connection with Wednesday’s shooting at the taxi rank.”
Due to lack of evidence, 12 suspects contracted to the Zamokuhle taxi association were released. An additional suspect was in hospital with bullet wounds and would join the others in the dock once he has fully recovered.
“We condemn these senseless and cold-blooded murders in the strongest possible terms. We appeal to anyone with information to report to the police immediately so that the perpetrators of these diabolical deeds can be apprehended and face the law,” Mchunu said.
People close to the killings are reluctant to speak to the media for fear of their lives.
A Mr Gumede, an operations manager at Mvimbeni, was reluctant to speak, but said: “It’s true that one of the men they killed on Sunday is our guard and he is among those that were released on Friday. This is just to destabilise us and get our attention away from doing the job we were contracted to do by Zamokuhle.”
A relative of Dludla, who asked not to be named, said it was surprising that neither the police nor Mchunu had visited the family.
“Only the security company came to see us. We don’t know how far the investigations are, or what is investigated. We are in the dark; all we know is that we have lost a father who left behind five children. It was his third day at the company when he was killed,” she said.
Daily News