Supplied
Brett Williams was beaten to death at King’s Park Stadium after a rugby match. Photo: Supplied
Durban – The five men accused of beating to death an English rugby fan at Kings Park last weekend should already be behind bars and not enjoying preferential treatment by handing themselves in at a later stage.
This is the strong opinion of criminal law specialists who have accused KwaZulu-Natal police of flouting legal procedure by refusing to arrest the men, despite knowing who they are.
However, police continue to maintain that the arrests have not been made as they do not arrest people with intent to punish them, but to ensure they appear in court. Legal representatives of the men have negotiated with police to hand themselves over on Wednesday.
Brett Williams, a former Royal Marine who was visiting Durban, died on the stadium’s outer fields after being kicked and punched to death in view of fellow rugby supporters. The five men allegedly responsible for the murder have been known to the police for days, with some of their names publicised on social networks.
Anthony Minnaar, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Unisa, said the Criminal Procedure Act stated that as soon as a suspect was known and positively linked to a crime, police had to arrest him.
“It is absolute nonsense that they have not been arrested,” he said.
And while it was not out of the ordinary for attorneys to avoid suspects’ arrests over weekends by negotiating that their clients hand themselves over on the first day after the holiday, Minnaar said it depended on the severity of the crime.
In this case the men should have been arrested as soon as they were identified.
DA spokeswoman Dianne Kohler Barnard said she was outraged.
“I absolutely fail to understand why they have not been arrested; they are murder suspects. You could expect this kind of thing if it was the son of a politician or something, but even Oscar Pistorius was arrested straight away,” she said.
But police spokesman Vince Mdunge said the police were acting within the law.
“There may be legal gurus out there, but we have all studied the same law… We will not be pressured to arrest them.
“It is better that we investigate properly and effect the arrests than jump the gun and we cannot secure their convictions,” he said.
When asked about the negotiations for the men to turn themselves in on Wednesday, Mdunge said: “There is an argument by their legal representatives for them to hand themselves in; but even if that does not happen the long arm of the law will get them. We know who they are.”
Private investigator Brad Nathanson said two of the accused, brothers from Umbilo, were notorious bullies.
“I received about 50 e-mails from witnesses and every one of them named these two. They are known for taking steroids for the purposes of street fighting, and many people said they had been beaten up by them in the past.”
The names of the other three suspects were also given to Nathanson by people who know them.
He believes all five are friends of a Sharks player, whose sister was present at the fight. Nathanson believed this was why they were not arrested immediately.
“Witnesses pleaded with security guards to make sure the men did not leave the scene before police arrived, but were ignored. Some of the guards appeared to know at least one of the accused,” he said.
The Mercury
