Battle of the ranks probed

2003-02-24 18:11

Pretoria - Military police are probing allegations that an army lieutenant assaulted a superior officer in Pretoria, the SA National Defence Force said on Monday.

Spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Kirstein said the alleged incident took place last week.

The victim of the apparent assault, Brigadier-General David Masters, was back at work this week. He is commanding officer of the engineers formation of the SANDF in Pretoria.

Kirstein would not provide further details, saying the matter was still under investigation.

Masters reportedly suffered two cracked ribs in the alleged assault.

The Democratic Alliance called for the suspension of the lieutenant, saying incidents of this nature could not be tolerated.

Reports on the matter indicated a decay of discipline in the defence force, DA defence spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said.

He said his party intended asking the parliamentary portfolio committee on defence to deal with the Military Disciplinary Bill as soon as possible.

The need for this was underlined by complaints - voiced recently in an official SANDF magazine - that members did not pay much attention to the military code of conduct.

"Offences such as being absent without leave, drunkenness, assault and general lack of respect to members with senior ranks seem to be prevalent," Schmidt said.

- SAPA