POLL | Do you believe police will solve the AKA assassination?
The state of law enforcement has again come under the microscope after police minister Bheki Cele’s promise that officers are cracking the case of rapper AKA’s murder.
Kiernan “AKA” Forbes was assassinated outside a popular Durban restaurant last month. Celebrity chef and author Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane was also killed in the shooting.
Two suspects had been identified but no arrests have been made. Cele promised justice would be served.
Speaking during a ministerial imbizo in Westbury, Johannesburg on Tuesday, where gang violence has gripped the area and made it near ungovernable, the police minister said officers were making progress in their investigation.
He said an update received from his KwaZulu-Natal team on Monday evening advised data from cellphones collected was being used to “patch and knit things together”.
“We acknowledge it is not with the speed the community and nation would have liked to see, but mark this space. We are cracking the case.
“Unfortunately, we can’t give you a blow-by-blow of what is happening, but the progress is absolutely there,” Cele said.
While some have said police should be given space and time to investigate the matter, others said the case would go cold.
Cele’s comments come days after he told Newzroom Afrika he was satisfied police were hard at work and had leads to follow.
“The investigation is going on. They [police in the province] are following directions. There is progress in the case. It seems to be significant [progress],” he said.
Cele said there is no timeline for when police will make an announcement about possible arrests.
“Sometimes it is OK to be thorough before you act in these cases because it is no use to rush and you find your case does not see the light of the day when it goes to court.
“We will brief the family rather than tell the media what has been done,” he said.
A petition calling for “Justice for AKA Kiernan Forbes” was created on Change.org and demanded answers from KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and national commissioner Fannie Masemola. The petition has more than 9,000 signatures.
Delivering crime statistics for October to December 2022, Cele said contact crimes such as murder increased by 11.6%.
He said 7,555 people were murdered, 3,144 of these with a firearm, and 2,498 were killed with weapons such as knives, sharp and blunt instruments, bricks or bare hands.
According to the Institute for Security Studies, murder has increased by 62% in the past 10 years from a low of 15,554 deaths in 2011/12 to 25,181 in 2021/22.
It also found the 2021/22 per capita rate of 42 murders per 100,000 figure was the highest since 2003/4 when the rate was 43.
It recorded a 55% drop since 2012 in the ability of police to solve murders.