LEBOGANG SEALE
F OUR thugs broke into the historic Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto, tied up a security guard and assaulted him badly before fleeing with more than 20 computers.
What they didn’t know was that their brazen act was captured by surveillance cameras.
But more than a year after the CCTV footage was handed over to detectives, no arrests have been made. This is despite police visiting the school, taking fingerprints and statements from witnesses.
And the principal has refused to hand over the footage, which if published in the media, could potentially lead to arrests.
The principal, Elias Mashile, has rebuffed numerous efforts by The Star to obtain the video footage showing the 2.30am robbery in March last year. He has also defied Gauteng Department of Education orders to release the footage to the media – raising suspicions about his interest in the case.
“He’s refusing. Ja no, he says he can’t… I am the head of communications… he is defying me. I am going to take action against him,” said angry department spokesman Charles Phahlane yesterday.
Mashile had earlier on Wednesday claimed he was not at the school when Phahlane instructed him to make the footage available to The Star. The paper had contacted Phahlane to intervene after Mashile repeatedly turned down requests to release the footage.
Cases of armed robbery and thefts were opened at the Moroka police station. Police are said to have also taken a copy of the CCTV footage and made copies.
After denying knowledge of the case, Moroka police station later admitted the case was reported at the station. “I checked in our computer system and we could only find a case of (theft of) curtains (at Morris Isaacson). That is the only case we have,” Captain Mpande Khoza said on Wednesday.
Yesterday, however, he said: “We know about the case. The quality of the CCTV footage is poor. The fingerprints were lifted, but they didn’t come positive. Nothing positive has materialised.”