Diver retrieve firearm from Tambotie

LEPHALALE – A 17-year-old teenager was arrested after he cast a firearm into the Tambotie river in an alleged attempt to get rid of the evidence after a shooting incident in Marapong on 14 September. Warrant officer Frans Mokoena of the Lephalale police says the teen claimed that he found the firearm in somebody’s vehicle where it was parked in Onverwacht. He supposedly took the firearm to his house in Marapong where he fired two shots before a witness reported the incident to the Lephalale crime intelligence unit. It appears as though the suspect tried to break the firearm before he threw it into the Tambotie river where divers of the police’s search and rescue unit retrieved the firearm and a few rounds of ammunition on Wednesday. The teenager was charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm and appeared in the Lephalale magistrate’s court.