Surrender now or we use force, CJ told 22/04/2015 03:00:00by Noxolo Nkabinde <http://www.observer.org.sz/author/admin/>
NATIONAL Commissioner of Police Isaac Magagula has urged Chief Justice Michael Ramodibedi to surrender himself to the police who have been camping outside the judges’ complex since Friday. The police chief speaking during a press conference at the police headquarters yesterday said the police would be within their rights to force entry into the Chief Justice’s house, but they were still imploring him to surrender himself or they would be ‘compelled to consider using other methods.’ “As the nation would be aware, there is a case involving the Chief Justice and others which has been widely covered by both the print and media. It is our duty amongst other responsibilities to ensure that court processes including warrants of arrests are executed and expeditiously served upon those concerned or cited. With regard to this matter, other warrants have been executed except for one citing the Chief Justice, whom we are still engaging in processes of ensuring that the warrant is executed accordingly,” he said. The police and Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) have failed to arrest the chief justice although his warrant of arrest was issued last Friday by High Court Principal Judge Stanley Maphalala. “Whilst the law allows us to use such force as is reasonable and proportionate to the circumstances of each case, we have not wanted to reach that stage as we still wish to pursue other options that can avoid undue complications. To this end, the chief justice has been and is still being implored to surrender as that would be the right and noble thing to do, something which he would be aware of as a judicial officer,” added the commissioner. Magagula said the delay in Ramodibedi’s arrest due to the fact that he had locked himself in his house was unnecessary and was complicating an otherwise simple operation which went without hiccups as far as the others were concerned. By others the police chief was referring to the arrests of former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Sibusiso Shongwe, High Court Registrar Fikile Nhlabatsi, Judge Mpendulo Simelane and Judge Jacobus Annandale. “We implore that he heeds to the call to surrender before we are compelled to consider other measures of serving the court processes,” he added. http://www.observer.org.sz/news/72221-surrender-now-or-we-use-force-cj-told.html -- -- NEW!!!! SSN FORUM IS ON FACEBOOK!!!! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum Google Group. Visit the group home page at http://groups.google.com/group/sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum for more options, pages and files. To post to the group, send email to [email protected] or reply to this message. To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
