Wife of Charl Kinnear says IPID report only declassified to protect 9 officers
Nicolette Kinnear said she opened a culpable homicide docket against the police officers implicated in the report.
Nicolette Kinnear, the widow of slain detective, Charl Kinnear, on 6 November 2024 reacted to IPID's declassifying the report into his murder. Picture: Carlo Petersen/EWN
CAPE TOWN - The wife of slain top cop Charl Kinnear has questioned why it's taken the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) two years to declassify an investigation report related to her husband's murder.
Nine police officers, including the former head of the Anti-Gang Unit and two Hawks officers, have been implicated in the report that was classified as top secret in 2022.
Nicolette Kinnear said she opened a culpable homicide docket against the nine police officers implicated in the report shortly before the document was classified.
READ: 9 police officers implicated in murder of Charl Kinnear as IPID declassifies report
"I believe the document was classified to protect those nine officers," she said.
Kinnear said IPID was forced to declassify the document after State witnesses provided evidence linked to the report in a high-profile trial related to her husband's murder.
"And now witnesses were on the bench or in the box, and they were naming names and they were not perjuring themselves. So yet again, the State was left with egg on their faces. They were humiliated because they tried to protect each other," Kinnear said.
IPID said the report was declassified because information shared by witnesses was now in the public domain.