Madlanga Commission: Ballistics expert says SA's testing methods are outdated

Police forensic expert Itumeleng Makgotloe has told the Madlanga Commission that South Africa’s ballistics testing methods are a little outdated.

He said their ballistics tests must completed in the same amount of time as 20 years ago, even though the weapons currently used are bigger and mostly automatic.

On Monday, Makgotloe was giving evidence about the links that were established between the killing of engineer Armand Swart in Vereeniging and subsequent arrests in Bramley.

He also sought to determine whether these were linked to any other high-profile crimes.

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Makgotloe said his ballistics unit used to have fewer cases to examine two decades ago using standard forensic methods when testing firearms.

But they’re now dealing with more complex cases but still must rely on the same testing times and methods even with high calibre firearms.

He said the focus now is more on quantity and not quality.

“Twenty years back we used to have pistol cases and used to find 9mm firearms. Lately now there’s a lot of rifles fully automatic rifles. Examinations of such are different from examination of then but the time allocated for you to work those cases remains the same,” explained Makgotloe.

He said these are just some of their shortcomings, but the police laboratory is working hard to improve their turnaround times.