Duh!

2008-01-07 23:09

Christel Raubenheimer

Pretoria - South Africa may have found its dumbest criminal for 2008 - even though it's only January.

The award could go to a man who reported his cellphone stolen - only to have it ring in the police station.

When police phoned the number he gave them, his "stolen" cellphone started ringing in his pants pocket.

Police spokesperson Eugene Opperman said the man had gone to report the theft at Mamelodi East police station on Saturday.

The man claimed a group of armed robbers had held him up earlier and taken his cellphone, but nothing else.

Opperman said: "The detective carefully questioned the man and took a sworn statement from him.

Was rendered speechless

"At the end of the interview, he rang the complainant's cellphone number, and it rang in the man's pocket."

The man apparently sat dead still and speechless, even when the detective took the cellphone from the his pants pocket.

"He told the detective that he'd given him the wrong phone number.

"But he couldn't explain why the phone in his pocket had the corresponding serial number or why it was the same make and fitted the description he'd given of the "stolen phone."

Opperman said the man also would not explain why he had reported the cellphone as stolen.

"The complainant was arrested on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice," said Opperman.

- Beeld