Nightmare ordeal was cop bungle

[schumi]

Johannesburg - Joburg businessman Dieter Bergs spent a year being accused of murdering his wife in what he’d insisted was a home invasion – before his lawyers proved that the police ballistic tests were wrong.

On Monday, charges against Bergs were withdrawn in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.

Now the SAPS faces questions not only around the reliability of its ballistics laboratory but also over whether it deliberately covered up the botched job.

The police didn’t respond to questions on this on Monday.

“The damage and defamation done as a result of that has been horrific,” said Bergs, who turns 80 on Sunday.

Geneé Bergs, 70, was shot dead in bed in their Parktown North home in March last year. They had been married for 15 years.

Bergs told police he had been in the study and his wife was asleep when he heard two loud bangs. When he went to investigate, he saw an intruder. He ran after the man and was shot in the hip.

There were two guns in the house, both 7.65mm pistols – one that Bergs had borrowed from a friend for protection and was kept next to the bed, and one he’d acquired legally in 1976, but had lost and forgotten about.

In late April last year, Geneé’s family found Bergs’s 1976 gun in the house and handed it to the police. SAPS forensic analyst Warrant Officer Thabo Seanego compared it to the two spent cartridges – a 7.65mm spent bullet and a fragment of a fired bullet jacket found at the murder scene. Seanego’s affidavit said that while the spent bullet and fragment couldn’t be linked to anything, the cartridge cases from the crime scene had been fired by Bergs’s gun.

Seanego’s report was the case against Bergs.

Rest at http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/nightmare-ordeal-was-cop-bungle-1.1919371#.VgD0032-Opo

 

[ToxicBunny]

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me....

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

/shakes head

 

[skeptic_SA]

I know this family. Worked with Dieters son for many years. Relieved their ordeal is finally over.

 

[Compton_effect]

And now every case that used that lab will need to be reopened and it will be used in every appeal.
This is going to cost the state millions.
By now some journalist is probably looking into Warrant Officer Thabo Seanego's qualifications.
Its going to be really awkward if they find he lied about it.

 

[Progenix Oj101]

And then people want the death penalty brought back with our current justice system? :wtf:

 

[Compton_effect]

And then people want the death penalty brought back with our current justice system? :wtf:

Gut instinct meets harsh reality.
I'm all for the death penalty - but cases like this make me question that.