SOUTH AFRICA NOT COMPELLED TO ARREST ‘DZODZO’, OTHERS

MBABANE – Being placed on the Interpol’s list of most wanted people is not a guarantee that a fugitive will be arrested.

The likes of Sicelo ‘Dzodzo’ Zikalala/Luthango, Mbuso Ncaza Nkosi and an unidentified individual might be on Interpol’s red alert notice but the South African government is not obliged to arrest them.

The three are wanted for the alleged murder of businessman Victor Gamedze and they are reported to be in South Africa where they are said to have fled to.
‘Dzodzo’ is a Swazi national while Nkosi is South African and it is suspected that the unidentified man is also from South Africa.

According to Interpol, a Red Notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition.
It is issued by the General Secretariat at the request of a member country or an international tribunal based on a valid national arrest warrant and it is not an international arrest warrant.

Interpol, however, states: “Interpol cannot compel any member country to arrest an individual who is the subject of a Red Notice. Each member country decides for itself what legal value to give a Red Notice within their borders.”
Interpol also does not send its own officers to arrest the subject of the red notice.

Neither can Interpol require any member country to take any action in response to another member country’s request. Swaziland currently has 23 people it placed on Interpol’s Red Notice. Chief Police Communication and Information Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba said placing fugitives on Interpol was helpful.

However, he could not provide the identities of escapees who have been arrested and brought back to Swaziland as a result of being placed on Interpol’s red notice.
“I have been told that there are people who have been arrested through Interpol, so it works; it’s not something that is useless. The Interpol (Swaziland) office said it wouldn’t be proper to divulge the names of those that have been arrested through this system.

But they say there are many arrests they have made,” Mamba said.
He continued: “It works for us, if it was useless we would have long withdrawn our membership from it. There are cases we have broken through that thing.”
He said the Royal Swaziland Police should not be tagged along in the criticism of Interpol processes.

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