On April 9th, 2007 around 19:00 I had returned from celebrating my Greek Orthodox Easter and was joined by some Greek friends as well as Director Booysen and his girlfriend Adele Sonnekus (also a police captain in his office), as well as a civilian friend of mine, Arthur Georgiadis.
While at my home, a call come through from the members of the Cato Manor unit informing Booysen that there was a shooting of suspects and “it was of concern.” Booysen looked distressed and asked me to accompany him to the crime scene together with Captain Sonnekus. He then proceeded to invite Arthur Georgiadis to accompany us even though he was a civilian. According to Booysen, he wanted to :
“demonstrate to him how his men kill African suspects”.
We drove to the crime scene, a parking garage attached to a house in Malvern, a suburb in Durban. We immediately entered the scene and Booysen proceeded to process and manage the CSI.
While he did so, I observed the following:
– An African suspect was lying in the corner of the garage, wounded and bleeding profusely (video) and in great agony. Members were casually waiting around, and some were making fun (video) of him.
– Another African suspect was deceased (video), trapped within a car in the garage, and shot multiple times.
-There was an excessive number of spent cartridges at the scene, including high-caliber shell casings.
– Arthur was invited onto the crime scene by Booysen.
– Booysen instructed me to collect the high-caliber spent cartridges and hand them over to senior officers including Mostert and Olivier. Arthur, my civilian friend, also searched and handed some cartridges to me. He has verified this by a video link that can be seen here.
An email where he verifies it.
– One of the high-ranking officers, Olivier, pointed to a spot where I was. He asked me to take a photo of a firearm (metadata) next to the deceased suspect (metadata) inside the vehicle. I found this strange as I had already photographed the scene nearly 16 minutes earlier (metadata). Many years later, when I looked at my photographs from that night again, I could clearly see that the suspect’s dead body had been in a different position from the first time I photographed it, and the second time I photographed it 16 minutes later. I concluded that by the time Officer Olivier pointed out the firearm to me, the body had been moved and a firearm had been planted there to make it look like he posed a threat to the officers who had killed him.
I requested an ambulance and asked Director Booysen to call for an ambulance. At that point, Captain Sonnekus was making fun of the dying suspect, while previously she said in Afrikaans what translates to ” Step on his tummy” ( insinuating that Booysen must step onto the bleeding suspect’s stomach for him to die faster)
The African suspect died (video).
Booysen leaned over and said something in Afrikaans. (Video) (Transcript)
– Director Booysen told me that they have purposely declared the scene unsafe until the suspect bleeds to death, they will not allow any paramedics to enter since he does not see a reason to provide medical care to the African suspect at the taxpayers’ expense!
One of the videos that I took of the crime scene, indicates that another firearm was also likely to have been planted at the scene. In one of the videos I took that night, you can see Captain Sonnekus standing next to one of the vehicles in the garage near the second suspect who was bleeding and in great agony. There is no firearm visible where she is standing, and she could not possibly have been standing on a suspect’s firearm. Then, in a photo I obtained from the official crime scene records, ( marked evidence F ) reconstructed by Captain C. Mangena as part of the assigned Task Teams efforts to investigate the Cato Manor case, a cocked firearm mysteriously appeared in the exact same spot where Captain Sonnekus was standing before ( Pointing with red arrow ).
We then left the crime scene and returned to my home.
At that point, I plugged my video camera into a TV set and proceeded to play the footage I had captured at the crime scene.
Booysen said something in Afrikaans to Captain Sonnekus and then he threatened me to get rid of the video or I will get into trouble, in front of everyone. I kept all the evidence.
Conclusion: The crime scene was tampered with. My findings were sent to the DPP, NPA, HRC and their reply was disappointing, to say the least.