Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) investigators will have to rely on forensic evidence gathered at the scene of a shootout between police and suspected gang members because all 19 people who were in the Limpopo house where the incident took place were killed.

Ipid spokesperson Robbie Raburabu said the watchdog body will rely on the forensic evidence gathered at the scene as there were no surviving witnesses from the house where the suspected gang members were killed.

“Everyone in that house was killed. So far, we only have the version of the police, so in this case we will work with forensic evidence,” Raburabu said. 

Raburabu said Ipid investigators were called to the scene on the day of the shooting. He said they “arrived on time” and began doing their work shortly afterwards.

He could not say how long the Ipid investigation would take. 

On Friday, 1 September, National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola announced they had broken the back of a syndicate responsible for a number of cash-in-transit heists in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘They started the war,’ says police chief Masemola after 18 gang suspects killed in 90-minute Makhado gun battle

Masemola said various units within the SAPS had been observing a group of suspects who were planning a heist at a cash depot in Limpopo. 

Masemola said the group was put under surveillance for a number of days before police pounced on them at a house in Elti Villas in Makhado.

“As soon as police approached the address, the group of suspects began shooting; police retaliated,” Masemola said.

Police said 19 people, 17 men and two women, were killed in a shootout that lasted about 90 minutes from around 1.30pm to 3pm. Initially, police said 18 people had been killed in the shootout. However, the Hawks said at the weekend that the body of another adult male had been found on Saturday, 2 September, while crime scene experts were processing the scene.

The SAPS said they found “11 firearms with lots of ammunition and multiple magazines (AK47, R1, R5 and a pistol) as well as primed explosives plus detonators, boosters, lead cords and raw explosives”. Ten vehicles were seized during the operation. 

A police officer who was wounded in the shootout was hospitalised and has reportedly had his leg amputated.

Meanwhile, five suspects linked to the group who were arrested in Thohoyandou on the day the 19 suspected gang members were killed in Makhado appeared briefly in the Vuwani Magistrates’ Court on Monday, 4 September.

Limpopo NPA spokesperson Mashudu Malabi Dzhangi named them as Asanda Maqcawu (33), Charity Phathutshedzo Makhwedzhana (34), Ramabele Justice Peta (46), Vusimusi Samuel Mabelea (51) and Sillo Shadrack Mposi (47).

They face charges of conspiracy to commit robbery, fraud, theft of a motor vehicle and possession of a stolen vehicle.

The case was postponed to 3 October for further investigations and to secure legal representatives for the accused persons. DM