Three men, including a policeman, convicted of a spate of robberies at South Coast pubs, have been handed lengthy prison terms.
|||Pietermaritzburg - Three men, including a policeman, convicted of a spate of robberies at popular South Coast pubs, have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Constable Sibusiso Mazeka, 35, who was stationed at the Swartberg police station, and two accomplices, John Green-Thompson, 44, and Mduduzi Dlamini, 28, were found guilty on Thursday of various charges relating to armed robberies at the Swartberg police station as well as several South Coast pubs between November 2009 and February 2010. Mazeka and Green-Thompson were also convicted of possession of unlicensed firearms.
Mazeka was sentenced to an effective 25 years, Green-Thompson to 20 years and Dlamini to 15 years behind bars.
Sentencing the men, Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Achmat Jappie said that it was an aggravating circumstance the robberies had all been carefully planned.
Firearms were used in all of the robberies, several of which were stolen from the Swartberg police station.
“Patrons were all threatened with firearms. It is clear that only because none resisted, none were harmed,” Judge Jappie said.
The gang targeted the Swartberg police station on November 29, 2009. On that day, Mazeka had called in sick.
He and his accomplices went to the station where they held up the officer on duty at gunpoint, handcuffed him and stole his service pistol. They ransacked the safe and stole firearms.
The gang then went on a crime spree, targeting pubs on the South Coast. On January 30, 2010, the gang went to the Pit Stop Pub in Margate where they threatened patrons and owners at gunpoint, tied them up and robbed them of their cellphones, wallets, cash, jewellery, liquor, laptops and a Toyota Hilux. On February 13, 2010, they struck at the Poison Apple Pub, and four days later the Cove Pub in Uvongo.
The next day they targeted Broomers Pub and Grill in Margate, where they again threatened and robbed patrons at gunpoint.
The men were arrested in late February 2010 after they were pulled over by police, who found three stolen firearms, two of which were SAPS-issued, concealed in the boot of the car.
Judge Jappie said the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast was a tourist destination and many of the patrons who were present at the pubs at the times of the robberies were from outside the province.
The judge also found the fact that Mazeka was a policeman an aggravating feature.
Daily News