Hawks spokesperson Captain Matimba Maluleka confirmed the acquittal on Tuesday 18 November.
He could not, at the time of going to print, give exact details of the court’s grounds for the acquittal of Humbulani Mulaudzi (39), Jan Maswanganyi (33), Sibusiso Makwela (37) and Simon Sebelebele (40).
The township in Bela-Bela was last weekend abuzz with conspiracy theories, with armchair legal analysts giving their own version with regards to the grounds for the acquittal.
Limpopo provincial police spokesperson, Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo, also could not, at the time of going to print, revisit as to the reasons given by an internal disciplinary process, which led to the suspension and later dismissal of the four officers in court.
Scores of spectators crowded the Bela-Bela Magistrate’s Court at the time of the first appearance of the suspects during September last year.
At the time of the four men’s arrest, the case drew massive interest from the mainstream media, with a national TV channel and various radio stations covering the event.
The arrests were a sequel to an alleged brazen armed robbery, where an amount of R190 000 was central to the charges.
As time went by, interest in the case became low-key, comparable to the first appearance where onlookers converged on the court premises in Bela-Bela in big numbers.
A unit from the Public Order Policing backed up scores of SAPS members monitoring the proceedings in and around the court premises.
According to the Hawks at the time of the arrests, the four men were charged with kidnapping, corruption and armed robbery.
Mulaudzi, Maswanganyi and Makwela were arrested by the Hawks in what was described as a sting operation, and rounded up on the premises of the Bela-Bela Police Station.
Sebelebele handed himself over shortly after the arrests of the latter threesome.
