Police have recovered the vehicle in which three SAPSmembers were travelling when they went missing in Gauteng.
The bodies of the three officers, along with two others, were found in the Hennops River on Tuesday.
The three constables travelling in the car were 24-year-old Constable Cebekhulu Linda, 30-year-old Constable Keamogetswe Buys, and 20-year-old Constable Boipelo Senoge from the Free State. They had been missing for almost a week.
Their bodies, as well as that of an administration clerk from the Lyttelton Police Station in Centurion and one unidentified person, were found earlier in the week.
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Saps spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe confirmed that the car pulled from the river on Thursday is the one the police have been searching for.
“The vehicle chassis number confirms this is the vehicle that Saps has been searching for.” Mathe said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Saps’ search and rescue team recovered vehicle parts from the Hennops River, including a front and a rear bumper.
“This metal object was felt by divers 4km from the N1. There is no confirmation as yet that this metal object is covered by debris,” said Mathe.
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A police reflector jacket belonging to one of the officers was also found at the scene.
The constables were travelling from Bloemfontein to their deployment area in Limpopo when they went missing.
Mathe said the constables’ last known location was at the Engen garage near the Grasmere toll plaza on the N1 south of Johannesburg.
Their vehicle tracking device and cellphones had been turned off since the day of their disappearance.
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National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola, said during a media briefing, said during a media briefing on Tuesday that a high-level Saps team spent six days and nights combing through Gauteng, Free State and Limpopo searching for the missing police officers.
The commissioner said the investigation and search led them to the Hennops River area on Monday, where officers found pieces of vehicle parts believed to be a VW Polo along the N1.
This discovery led officers to the banks of the river, where they located a Renault Kangoo panel van.
“We don’t want to speculate at this stage what led to the discovery of these bodies in this river, whether it was an accident or not. Our investigation will reveal those aspects once we find their vehicle,” the commissioner said.