November 17 2011 at 02:41pm
CONFESSION: Gerhardus du Plessis, face covered, leaves the Pretoria Central Magistrate s Court yesterday. Picture: Thobile Mathonsi
SHAIN GERMANER AND SAPA
As police investigate the large group of men allegedly responsible for the murder of Chanelle Henning, the suspended police officer who pulled the trigger may have been facing a drug addiction which led him to commit the crime.
It was in a discussion on the John Robbie show on Talk Radio 702 that it was revealed that Constable Gerhardus Du Plessis had been seen by either a friend or neighbour in the streets outside his home the night before the murder of Chanelle Henning. Shirtless and upset, he allegedly called out: “They want me to kill her”. Previous reports had indicated that it was a drug addiction that had forced the police officer to cooperate with the syndicate hired to murder Chanelle Henning, a theory that police have been unwilling to confirm. The motive behind the murder still remains a mystery, as no connection between the drug dealers suspected to be involved in the crime and Henning have been revealed. After appearing yesterday at the Pretoria Central Magistrate’s Court, the other three men arrested, one of whom an ex-olympic athlete for his home country of Nigeria, are set to appear in court today. All four men are facing charges of murder as well as conspiracy to commit murder.
The arrest of Du Plessis and three other suspects has led police to think a syndicate was responsible for the murder of Pretoria mother, Chanelle Henning.
The officer and three other men were arrested for the murder of the 26-year-old woman, killed in a hit outside her son’s nursery school last week. But investigating officer Captain Peet van der Spuy believes there are other people involved in the slaying.
More arrests were expected over the next few days, he said.
GUNNED DOWN: Chanelle Henning.
Police said yesterday that Gerhardus du Plessis, previously stationed at Hercules in Pretoria West, had confessed to pulling the trigger.
The 30-year-old officer was automatically suspended after he was detained on Monday. He was already being investigated for the recent theft of two murder dockets.
Monday’s arrest led police to three other suspects between the ages of 20 and 34 on Tuesday.
“We are not sure how many suspects are still outstanding,” Van der Spuy said at a media briefing at the SAPS Gauteng headquarters.
Van der Spuy declined to give a motive for the hit Du Plessis, who police said had confessed to the murder, appeared in the Pretoria Central Magistrate’s Court yesterday to be charged with the murder. He covered his head with an old T-shirt as he arrived in court. His brief appearance was adjourned to allow him to consult his legal aid lawyers.
When proceedings resumed, prosecutor Andrea Johnson told the court that Du Plessis had handed himself over to the police shortly before midnight on Monday.
“We have a confession,” she said, before the matter was postponed to November 23 to allow the State to gather more evidence.
Du Plessis has been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, the illegal possession of a firearm and the illegal possession of ammunition.
Earlier yesterday, Gauteng deputy police commissioner Major-General Nobesuthu Masiye said the murder docket that went missing disappeared two weeks before the murder.
Police declined to respond to reported connections between the suspects and an allegedly prominent Nigerian druglord, saying Chanelle had never been on drugs, nor did drugs have any connection to the crime.
Masiye said the identikits compiled by police last week had matched one of the suspects, but could not say if it was that of the arrested officer.
A report in a Joburg newspaper yesterday claimed that the police had arrested a convicted criminal and a suspended policeman.
The report stated that the two assassins were hired by someone with links to “a prominent Nigerian drug dealer”. It is not clear why Henning would have been targeted by the underworld.
On Tuesday last week, she had just dropped off her son Benjamin at his nursery school, Morning Star Montessori in Faerie Glen, when two thugs on a black superbike fired shots through the side of her car and fled.
A bullet pierced her chest and punctured a lung. The young mother had been on her way to Woodhill College, where she worked as a teaching assistant.
The arrests were made just hours after Henning’s funeral in Hartbeespoort. The boy was placed in foster care until his maternal grandparents, Ivan and Sharon Saincic, and Nico Henning, his dad, could come to a custody agreement.
Benjamin is staying with his grandparents. Asked again yesterday if Henning remained under investigation, police were unwilling to say.
The investigation continues.
