Police were searching on Monday for a French couple involved in a shooting incident in which a South African police officer was killed and another wounded.
Northern Cape police spokesperson Colonel Hendrik Swart said the search for the two was focused in the vicinity of Sutherland.
They were looking for Philippe Pierre Meniere (60) a qualified medical doctor who underwent some military training in France.
He was seen wearing glasses, brown South African National Defence Force trousers, a shirt and Hi-Tec boots. He is about 1,82m tall and thinly built. He speaks English with a strong French accent.
The woman is Agnes Jeanne Jardel (55) about 1,70m tall and thinly built. She has long grey hair and was also dressed in brown army trousers and Hi-Tec boots.
The pair have South African citizenship but are of French origin.
Armed and dangerous
Swart said the couple was armed and dangerous and it was believed that they had various firearms in their possession. These included a 12-bore shotgun, a .223 rifle, a .357 pistol, two 9mm pistols and a .22 pistol.
Swart said about 50 police officers were searching in the Sutherland area.
The community was requested to keep on providing any information to the police. Swart urged the public not to confront the suspects but to contact their nearest police station instead.
The French couple are on the run after shooting at police and the owner of the farm on which they had been staying on Friday.
The farmer asked police to help evict the couple from a house on his farm, because they were apparently in possession of various illegal firearms.
The eviction turned into a shooting in which a police officer was killed and another wounded in the back.
The Cape Times reported on Monday that the wounded police officer, Warrant Officer Glenwall du Toit (42) was treated in the intensive care unit at the N1 City Hospital.
‘Afraid I was going to die’
Glenwall told the newspaper he was lucky to be alive.
“After he shot me in the back, he kept firing at the tyres of our cars. I lay on the ground, afraid I was going to die,” Du Toit was quoted as saying.
The report said that when the officers went to the farm on Friday they were accompanied by the farmer Gerhardus du Plessis and his two sons, Cobus and Jaen.
Du Toit said they arrived and found the firearms without any problem but when they were loading the guns into a police vehicle shots had been fired.
It was reported that the policeman killed was student-constable Jacob Boleme (27) from Soutpan in the Free State. – Sapa