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Charl Kinnear (Photo by Noor Mohammed)
Investigators used the same cell phone technology that the suspect allegedly used to track the cell phone of murdered Anti-Gang Unit Lieutenant Charl Kinnear to arrest a 39-year-old former rugby player, who will be charged with complicity in the murder.
The suspect from Springs, east of Johannesburg, owner of a tracing and investigation company, will make his first appearance at Bishop Lavis Magistrates Court in Cape Town on Friday, September 25.
You are not expected to plead guilty and the charge sheet describing the case you are facing will be delivered to the court. The man was arrested on Wednesday, September 23 at 10 p.m. at his home.
Charl Kinnear was assassinated on Friday, September 18, in front of his home at 10 Gearing Road, Bishop Lavis. Soon after, investigators removed the dead detective’s cell phone and records from his car.
National Crime Intelligence, working with the Hawks on the investigation, requested a forensic report from the location-based service (LBS) to track down Kinnear’s cell phone tracker. The LBS report pointed out to investigators exactly where and for how long Kinnear had been tracked.
The detained suspect had allegedly tracked Kinnear’s cell phone for months and, according to sources close to the investigation, a man who identified himself as “Mohamad” had asked him to track his wife’s (Mohamad) cell phone.
The suspect has claimed that he was unaware that the phone he had been asked to trace was from Kinnear. The Anti-Gang Unit section leader’s phone was pinged more than 2,000 times, including on the day he was killed.
The former rugby player, sources said, is a debt collector for defaulters on car financing. The man’s line of work would have given him access to technology that would have allowed him to easily and inexpensively track Kinnear.
Tracker companies are allowed to ping SIM cards frequently when a tracker unit stops transmitting. Networks allow tracker companies to ping their own units inexpensively.
Hawks spokesman Brig. Hangwani Mulaudzi, confirming the arrest, indicated that further arrests could not be excluded as the investigation was still ongoing. This would imply that a larger group of individuals acted with a common purpose to kill Kinnear.
Springs was Kinnear’s last stop during his investigation into the alleged boss of the underworld, Nafiz Modack. He also investigated eight high-ranking police officers accused of collusion with other officers in the Central Firearms Register.
Legal experts said that because there was clearly a great deal of planning involved in the murder, the arrested suspect could face charges under the Prevention of Organized Crime Act.
The lead detectives, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed the order to “take out” Kinnear led to their investigation in Gauteng and that corrupt police officers had allied with underworld figures to kill him.
“They wanted to prevent Kinnear from exposing more corrupt police officers. The other vital evidence was the two files Kinnear brought in implicating Cape Town underworld figures on extortion charges. ”
More alarming is that the safe location of the officers who worked with Kinnear in these cases could have been compromised while Kinnear’s phone was being tracked. Kinnear had visited the homes of these officers, raising fears that they had been exposed.
John Alexander, an investigator for Royal Investigation who is familiar with the trace, shed some light on how the Hawks could continue to trace “Mohamad’s” cell phone.
Alexander said investigators would first have to request a warrant in terms of section 205 of the Criminal Procedures Act to obtain the suspect’s cell phone records.
“All mobile phones have an IMEI [international mobile equipment identity] number that is unique. An IMEI search will indicate how many SIM cards a specific cell phone used. It is vital that investigators locate a cell phone of the person named Mohamad in the suspect’s cell phone records. This will give the police an indication of the location of this Mohamad person and where their calls were made from, ”Alexander said.
Legal experts said that because there was clearly a great deal of planning involved in the murder, the arrested suspect could face charges under the Prevention of Organized Crime Act.
The planned murder of Kinnear reflected, in some respects, the plot of Najwa Petersen, wife of musician and composer Taliep, to assassinate him on December 16, 2006.
Taliep Petersen was executed in the living room of his house. It was later discovered that Najwa Petersen had planned the murder with several men, who became her co-defendants.
Judge Siraj Desai, who convicted NajwaPetersen and his co-defendant on February 11, 2009, said that while Najwa had requested the murder, the killers had caused the death of Taliep Petersen. The group was found to act with a common purpose.
Common purpose is likely to form the basis of the charges once all suspects in Kinnear’s murder are arrested.
Meanwhile, the search continues for the suspect who pulled the trigger multiple times, killing Kinnear at point-blank range.
Information from residents about a possible suspect was unsuccessful as the gunman had worn a hoodie that had protected his face. DM
