Cape Town – More than 1 000 criminals, including killers, rapists and thieves, are working as police officers and a special rooting-out process, the first of its kind in South African history, means they now all face being kicked out of the service.
Police have confirmed dismissal notices have been prepared for the bulk of the officers, but an interdict brought on by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) in the Eastern Cape has resulted in their removals being stalled.
Of the 1 448 police officers around the country with criminal records, 140 are from the Western Cape.
And these figures are probably higher as they have not been updated since 2010.
On Thursday, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced that following an audit into criminality within the police, 1 448 members were found to have criminal records and of these, after legal and labour processes, it was found 1 017 were not fit for service and a process was under way to have them removed.
