A PLAYER for one of South Africa’s top rugby union teams has been charged with murder for allegedly beating to death a police officer who pulled his car over in the early hours of Friday morning.
Bees Roux, a 28-year-old tighthead prop for the Pretoria-based Blue Bulls, was allegedly still on top of police sergeant Jacob Mogale in one of the city’s main thoroughfares when emergency services arrived on the scene at around 2am.
South African police and ambulance spokesmen claimed that he had to be forcibly removed from Mogale, who was already dead.
The reports prompted Roux’s agent to release a statement insisting his client was “a gentle man with a soft heart”, adding that the incident was “unfortunate for all concerned”.
Colonel Eugene Opperman, a police spokesman, said that Roux would be held in custody over the weekend and brought before the city’s magistrates court on Monday morning.
“Roux is the only person to have been arrested,” he said. “He was alleged to be the person involved in the assault.”
Police spokesman Captain Katlego Mogale alleged that Roux had to be forcibly removed by police from the officer, who she said was in full uniform.
“The suspect was on top of the deceased when police arrived on the scene,” she said. “He was pulled off and an ambulance was called.”
In a statement posted on the Blue Bulls’s website, a spokesman for the team said: “It has come to the Blue Bulls Company (Pty) Ltd’s attention that Bees Roux has allegedly been involved in an incident involving a metro policeman last night in Pretoria.
“We do not have any factual information at this stage, but have been informed that the policeman passed away. We would like to express our sincerest condolences to the relatives of the deceased.”
Roux’s profile on the Blue Bulls website describes him as measuring 1.86m in height and weighing 120kg (18st 8lbs).
Roux signed with the Bulls at the end of 2009. The team was due to play the Pumas at Nelspruit’s Mbombela stadium on Friday night. - Daily Telegraph