Military colonel hands himself over to police after 18 years

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 A military colonel, who committed an armed robbery at an Eastern Cape police station 18 years ago, has handed himself over to the military police.

Defence department spokesperson, Brigadier General Xolani Mabanga says Colonel Nceba Patrick Bobelo reported to the joint operations headquarters in Pretoria on Tuesday afternoon.

He says correctional services officials indicated that Bobelo had to serve his sentence in the Eastern Cape.

Mabanga said there were no indications that Bobelo was trying to evade arrest or that he was trying to run away because he had handed himself over.

Bobelo's appeal against his prison sentence failed in 2001, but neither the army nor the justice department were able to explain why the commander of the military's joint tactical headquarters
in Mpumalanga, had avoided jail.

In 1995, he was one of four defendants convicted of robbing the Ntabethemba police station in the Eastern Cape.

Two policemen were attacked and several firearms were stolen.