decisionundatedE000148
Officer pushes for early destruction of Aeroton cocaine before testing
An officer pushed for the urgent destruction or disposal of what was believed to be the Aeroton cocaine exhibits before FSL testing was complete. The stated justification was that the defence in any prosecution could request to physically inspect the exhibits during trial. Requests for FSL to advise on destruction procedure were made. This is the key misconduct allegation for Heist 2.
Described by 2 witnesses
Each of these people gave first-hand evidence about this event. Several accounts of the same event is a property of the record — it is not verification, and witnesses can be mistaken together.
13 claims from testimony
"someone was pushing for the urgent destruction or disposal of what was believed to be Cocaine"
"Reason being, throughout the court case, the Defence can ask to actually see these exhibits"
"FSL Pretoria was able to dispose of the exhibits"
"please, can you make that we can destroy these things?"
"have you ever requested FSL to enquire from FSL how to go about destroying exhibits if they take time to make storage available for your exhibits"
"I have, due to correspondence in matters that I have, and it was requested to me that I correspond, that I can move exhibits to them for destruction. Yes, I have"
"Not for you to move exhibits to them for destruction, where you are asking them how you can destroy drugs"
"all property and exhibits seized must be stored or entered in the SAP13 property register of the relevant police station"
"it says, and entered into an SAP13 of that relevant unit"
"the DPCI offices in Port Shepstone did not have an SAP13 register"
"that is the sort of thing you would have established if there was an investigation"
"In October of 2021, there was no SAP13 register that records where these exhibits were stored"
"keeping them there without a proper SAP13 register"