Cape Town - Four men, including an army captain, charged with a cash-in-transit robbery in Oudtshoorn tried to appeal their refusal of bail in the Western Cape High Court but were unsuccessful after the court found they had failed to provide exceptional circumstances for their release.
Sakehle Nkabi, Simphiwe Matwa, Lwandiso Lento and Masixole Doloma are facing charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition, and pointing of a firearm.
They are accused of executing the robbery of a Fidelity Cash Solutions vehicle when it stopped to collect money from a petrol station in Bridgeton, Oudtshoorn, on July 19 last year.
The robbery took place at about 11am when a guard was held at gunpoint after he had retrieved the cash. According to the State, one of the men sat in a white Toyota vehicle outside the garage, another held the firearm, while the third took the bag of money containing R86 690 cash.
A witness who followed the three in the car, noticed them changing the number plates of the vehicle after they fled the scene. They got into another vehicle and from there, the vehicles went in different directions.
The three were arrested minutes later after they were pulled over at the Herold’s Bay turn off in George. After a search of the vehicle, police found the bag of cash and two firearms.
The serial number of one firearm had been removed and the other matched the firearm that was taken from the guard. Nkabi said the State had a weak case against him, but Acting Judge Alma De Wet disagreed.
Nkabi was implicated and arrested after police found his SANDF uniform in the same vehicle in which the firearms and money were found.
The police were also informed that Nkabi had arranged for the first vehicle to be parked at a friend’s house not far from an infantry school. After the robbery took place, false number plates were found in the vehicle.
Matwa was a former employee of the security company and was found guilty of negligence when he failed to arrive for work when another robbery occurred in September 2020.
The four relied on their personal circumstances in bringing their application, and told the court they had no previous cases pending and had no previous convictions. They also made submissions to the effect that they were the sole breadwinners for their respective families.
Their appeal, however, was dismissed as the court could not fault the magistrate’s decision to deny bail given their brazen attitude during the commission of the offences.
The Acting Judge said: “It does not appear that the perpetrators wore masks at any stage, so brazen were their attitudes. They clearly had very little fear of being caught or prosecuted. The way the robbery took place shows that the perpetrators have a propensity to violence and a disregard for the law.
“The likelihood of the appellants interfering with the investigation and prosecution, while only one of the factors to be considered, has in my view been established,” she said.
The four will remain in custody as they await the outcome of their trial.