A suspected gang leader known as “Tiger” escaped with the help of South African police after being pulled from an illegal gold mine last week where at least 78 miners died, the police said on Monday.
The Lesotho national resurfaced from the deep mine shaft in Stilfontein while officers had it surrounded, and was supposed to be escorted directly to the nearest police station for detention, said national police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe.
But during a routine inspection, a senior officer noticed “Tiger” was not in the holding cells, she told public broadcaster SABC.
“The only logical conclusion is that someone let him free,” she said. “Preliminary investigations indicate that he was let go between Shaft 11 and the police station.”
The police said in a statement that they had launched a manhunt and were investigating who within their forces might have assisted “Tiger”. Three other suspected ringleaders are in custody, Mathe added.
Police were widely condemned for their months-long siege of the illegal gold mine, in which they cut off food and water in an attempt to force the miners out and arrest them.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the state should not be held responsible for the deaths.
“You have got people who voluntarily entered mines and did some illegal activities and in the process died inside those mines. To then come back and say the state is going to take the blame for that, in my view, is misplaced,” he told Reuters at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The standoff culminated in a state-sponsored rescue last week in which 246 survivors were retrieved from the mine, many emaciated and weak from hunger.
Police have cited miners as saying there was food underground, but that the gang leaders kept it for themselves.
Thousands of people are believed to be mining gold illegally in abandoned industrial mines in South Africa.
The operations are thought to be run by Lesotho-based gangs, and police say some of the workers are illegal immigrants recruited from neighbouring countries without knowing what they have come to do.
