http://allafrica.com/stories/200409230243.html
Wyndham Hartley
"Confused' officers kill 360 in a year. A five-year delay in implementing new rules governing the use of lethal force by the South African Police Service has contributed to the high number of deaths by shooting at the hands of police, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) has reported.
Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act allowed police to shoot fleeing suspects regardless of the severity of the crime they were suspected of having committed. It was scrapped by Parliament in 1998 and replaced with a provision that specifies police may only shoot when lives are in danger.
But the police stonewalled the new law for five years and it only came into effect in October last year, halfway through the period under review in the report. The ICD's finding that the police have continued to shoot fleeing suspects could make the safety and security department vulnerable to civil claims ."
