The Western Cape Police Provincial Commissioner has welcomed the hefty sentences handed down to six gangsters in the High Court in Cape Town.
Horation Solomons, Ismail Ockerts, Keenen Kruger and Lucian Consul were sentenced to life behind bars yesterday.
Their co-accused Fabian Constable and Ziyaad Safodien were sentenced to 10 and 11 years imprisonment respectively.
The sentences related to the 2017 murder of Vernon Botes and various other serious and violent crimes.
Western Cape police commissioner General Yolisa Matakata have lauded the job done by the investigating and prosecution teams.
“This brings to an end the terror and fear that these ruthless criminals inflicted on the communities where they operated their life of crime,” Matakataka says in a statement.
Cape Town townships are riddled with gang violence, which some researchers have attributed to the city’s racist history.
A recent report by the Mexican Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice ranked the Mother City as the eighth most violent city in the world.
The report annually surveys 50 of the world’s most dangerous cities.
Cape Town recorded 3 065 murders among its 4.5 million people – the highest number of deaths out of the 50 countries surveyed.
The University of Cape Town’s Director of the Safety and Violence Initiative (SaVI), Guy Lamb, has largely attributed this to access to illegal firearms.