Kraaifontein police are hunting a fugitive who has been on the run since 2019.
Zolile Bornside, now 35, escaped from the Blue Downs Regional Court, where two of his co-accused were sentenced to lengthy jail terms. He is still at large.
His co-accused Xolani Nqunqa, 34, was on Monday April 12 sentenced to 21 years in jail for a 2014 armed robbery at a petrol station.
Twelve years for possession of an unlicensed firearm will run concurrently with the armed-robbery sentence.
Nqunqa was also declared unfit to possess a firearm, Kraaifontein police spokesman Captain Hein Hendricks said.
Another accused, Masonwabe Bam, 32, pleaded guilty to charges of armed robbery and possession of unlicensed firearms on September 5 2017 and was sentenced, in the Blue Downs Regional Court on October 5 2017, to ten years imprisonment on both counts.
The State believes Nqunqa, Bam and Bornside are three of the five men who held up the Caltex service station on the corner of Okovango and Vatican roads, in Uitzicht, on July 24 2014.
“They robbed the employees at gunpoint and took cellphones, cigarettes and over R5000 in cash. They also robbed customers of R1000 in cash. They then hijacked an Opel Astra from one of the customers at the service station,” Captain Hendricks said.
The Opel Astra’s tracker led police to Gugulethu where the police cornered the gang. The driver and the passenger riding shotgun fled, but police arrested Bam and Nqunqa along with Bornside.
Anyone who has information on Bornside’s whereabouts or the whereabouts of the two perpetrators who escaped arrest is asked to Captain Bertie Mong at 079 894 0154.