On Friday Nkosikhona Gumbi will appear in the Orlando magistrate’s court, facing a murder charge.
Police believe that Gumbi was the getaway driver for a group of men who killed Soweto doctor George Koboka at his practice in Diepkloof five months ago.
CCTV footage from the surgery shows Koboka’s killers walking into the doctor’s consultation room moments before shooting him. Patients in the waiting room are seen running for cover.
The killers took nothing from him, raising questions about whether this was a hit.
Despite widely circulated footage of the incident clearly showing the killers, none of them has been arrested so far.
Police are yet to reveal how Gumbi was identified.
We also do not yet know why the evidence against him has not led investigators to his accomplices, if indeed he was involved.
The questions around the police’s handling of the case have prompted the family to seek the services of a private investigator to hunt down the killers.
No-one can blame them.
The family’s desperation is understandable and must be accepted in the context of diminishing confidence in the police system by this community.
Koboka’s murder appears to be yet another incident where those responsible for this relatively simple, yet deeply tragic crime have gone unpunished despite being identifiable.
While we can appreciate that our police system is under pressure and its capacity, in particular at local station level is overstretched, it is inconceivable that five months later, with one person in custody and footage of the actual shooting, police have not been able to make any progress in rounding up the triggermen.
As we’ve reported before, the Koboka incident was not isolated. It formed part of a pattern of violence and attacks on doctors and patients that have continued in this area and without any visible attempt at intervention.
So prevalent are these incidents that shortly after Koboka’s murder, about 120 doctors threatened to shut down their services in a desperate bid to get the attention of authorities.
They did, albeit briefly.
Yet the situation continues unabated and many more innocent lives are threatened every day with little to no effort from the police to arrest the situation.
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