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The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Shocking moment Marbella cop SLAPS sunbather as two people are arrested during major crackdown on beach vendors
THIS is the shocking moment a Spanish cop slapped a sunbather during a major crackdown on beach vendors. The jaw-dropping footage, captured in the holiday hotspot of Marbella, came as two people were arrested in police operations. 5 5 5 The cop, who was wearing a helmet to protect his head, slapped an elderly man twice around the face despite the fact there seemed to be prior physical provocation. The unidentified holidaymaker appeared to yell "Hijo de puta" which in English would translate as "Son of a bitch" before being slapped. Despite the video footage appearing to identify the police officer as the aggressor, the elderly tourist is understood to have arrested. Stunned tourists looked on in horror as tensions between local police and street vendors in Marbella boiled over. Video clips show confrontations between the cops and vendors playing out. But the viral footage of the policeman slapping a bather is now being reviewed by the authorities. This incident is reported to have happened at around 4pm on Saturday, July 19, at Faro Beach in Marbella. Another holidaymaker in swimming trunks, filmed being surrounded by seven officers and pinned to the ground after a shouting match and a lot of fingerpointing, tried to intervene but also ended up getting arrested. Sources claimed today that one of the detainees threw a bottle at cops. He denies the allegation. Moment huge fight breaks out at Benidorm swimming pool in front of shocked tourists An operation against street vendors of counterfeit goods was taking place there at the time of the clips. Other videos of the operation show cops riding around the area on quadbikes. One clip shows a cop riding up on his quadbike to a man carrying handbags on the beach. The man quickly sprints away from the police officer as he dismounts. The cop stumbles and trips over in the sand as he attempts a pursuit. Other videos show bewildered tourists looking on as a chase is underway. Another appears to show a police officer pushing a man out of a cafe door as he pursues enquiries. Marbella Town Hall has not yet commented on the actions of the police officer seen slapping the tourist filmed insulting him at the weekend. They said the incident had happened during a routine police inspection against itinerant street trading. Police officers on quads are carrying out more regular inspections during the summer in Marbella. 5
Daily Maverick
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
André Lincoln — from Mandela's protector to anti-gang pioneer, leaving a legacy of resilience
Retired top cop André Lincoln died on 30 May 2025 at the age of 63. He arguably had one of the most tumultuous careers in the history of the South African Police Service. What he leaves behind is not just a legacy of controversy, but of resilience and perseverance. 'Please remember we still have lots left to do.' These are the words André Lincoln, a retired policeman, wrote a few months ago when signing a copy of a book framed around his life. Lincoln, a married father of five, died in Cape Town on Friday, 30 May 2025. He was 63. Before Lincoln retired in 2021, he had a remarkable career in the South African Police Service that stretched over decades. He headed the Anti-Gang Unit in the country's gangsterism epicentre, the Western Cape. Years earlier, he was convicted of crimes of which he was later acquitted — Lincoln always maintained he had been framed because investigations he was conducting were causing panic among figures in the government who were up to no good. Opinions about him over the years were somewhat split — despite his acquittal, some individuals peddled the idea that he was criminal, while others believe he was still being maliciously targeted. Lincoln, when detailing his past, said he was effectively the first victim of State Capture in democratic South Africa. Before his time as a police officer, Lincoln was assigned to protect the democratic country's first president, Nelson Mandela, and before that he was an ANC intelligence operative taking on the apartheid regime. Lincoln recently said he was hellbent on trying to ensure that young children had decent role models. The country's trajectory disheartened him, he distanced himself from individuals linked to the state whom he had spent time with during earlier years, and he wanted a better South Africa, saying we must push for it. That is perhaps the legacy he now leaves behind. This journalist wrote a book, Man Alone: Mandela's top cop – exposing South Africa's ceaseless sabotage, that tracked Lincoln's life as this country's political arena shifted. It was published in November last year, and Lincoln signed my copy. Part of the message he penned says: 'Please remember we still have lots left to do.' This is an extract from the book: Man Alone André Edward Lincoln was born in the city of Mahikeng in South Africa's North West province on 28 October 1961 to devoutly Catholic parents, Reginald and Wilma. The two met in Mahikeng and later got married there in October 1960. They had three children, Lincoln and two daughters. Before 1994, Reggie was involved in underground MK activities — he'd helped smuggle recruits from Mahikeng to Lobatse in Botswana. Wilma, on the other hand, wanted to distract her husband from politics and protect her son from it. So she convinced Reginald to move to Cape Town (where he had gone to high school) to try to sever ties with political matters. This plan backfired. Spectacularly. Lincoln's footsteps matched his dad's. He and Reggie obviously share genes — Lincoln looks a lot like his father. And the two also shared deep foundational bonds. Aside from his MK activities, Reggie became a motor mechanic and had a workshop in the Cape Town suburb of Athlone, where Lincoln spent long periods next to him. Reggie also enjoyed sports such as soccer, cricket and, most notably, karate. He became a sensei, later spending his evenings and Saturdays teaching. Those who experienced his mentoring recalled how he taught students and those around him that everyone was born equal. Reggie, to them, truly understood and practised ubuntu – part of a Zulu phrase meaning 'I am, because you are.' Reggie was no ordinary sensei. He'd trained in Okinawa, Japan, the birthplace of karate. (When he retired from the sport in his late 70s, he was graded a sixth dan in Okinawa, which is a very high rank.) On home soil, Reggie dealt with issues like poverty and hunger through the sport. Out of his own pocket, he was said to have created a dojo first in the Cape Town suburb of Salt River, and then in Maitland. Reggie had also coached at a primary school on Robben Island — where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his 27 years; these were training sessions for the workers and officials (and their children) based there. He taught timeless karate prescripts: 'To strive for the perfection of character. To defend the path of truth. To foster the spirit of effort. To honour the principles of etiquette. To guard against impetuous courage.' These were likely the lessons Reggie instilled in Lincoln, who also excelled at karate. A primary school friend of Lincoln's said that Reggie had been the sensei at a karate school both he and Lincoln attended from a young age – 'I think that's where André got his discipline from.' Indeed, Lincoln achieved a grading of fifth dan in Japan in 1992. In the years after that, figures linked to underworld investigations recalled that Reggie was an impenetrable karate master whom they respected. It was his son they had issues with. Lincoln has textured memories of his father. 'His life, his influence, his energy, are inextricably linked to mine,' Lincoln recalled. 'I'm grateful that I'm becoming a more fully realised human being. A more caring, compassionate and empathetic person because of my dad.' Lincoln does not believe that money, possessions, or professional success quantifies a person. He said of his father: 'The true measure of a man is how much love he gives, how selflessly he shares whatever he can to help others, how consistently he lifts those around him with a kind word, a funny joke, a compliment, a humble ear, or the very shoes off his feet. By this measure my dad was immeasurable.' Lincoln also remembered Reggie as the most 'sincerely unselfish' person he had ever met, with no attachment to material goods. 'He would literally give you the clothes he was wearing; this became abundantly clear to us as children when he would always see to himself last and Mom and us first.' In 1974, at the age of 13, Lincoln was recruited into the ANC by Brian Williams, a former trade union leader who became the first head of the Labour Department in the Western Cape post apartheid, and whom Lincoln now describes as his mentor. A tender teen, Lincoln was effectively being trained to fight apartheid. He was being ushered towards MK — and towards becoming a child soldier. During an informal conversation with me, one of Lincoln's associates explained that theirs was a generation that lost out on vast tracts of childhood. They were reared to fight for liberation and against racism, and did not have the chance to have other children's experiences. Playtime was cut short. Toys were exchanged for guns, bullets or makeshift weapons. They were under immeasurable stress, even though they may not have understood it at the time. Those children had to defend themselves, a country, and the children they'd perhaps have one day. Lincoln, the child undergoing a baptism of political fire, attended St John's Roman Catholic School in the Cape Town suburb of Kensington. Of his time as a young boy, Lincoln, with a naughty look in his eyes, says, 'When I was at school I was afraid of only two things — the Security Branch… and my mother.' By 1980, aged 19, Lincoln was part of the ANC's national tactical unit. In 1982, still following in his dad's footsteps, Lincoln joined MK as part of a cell led by Tony Yengeni, now a former ANC chief whip, who gave him a crash course in underground warfare in an abandoned classroom in Kensington. Lincoln received further military training in Zimbabwe and Angola, and later worked in the MK information wing. By 1989, he worked on a campaign that involved marches and other acts of defiance by organisations that the apartheid government had banned. An informant of his would later recall that Lincoln drew strength and motivation from anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko's words: 'Black man, you're on your own.' Lincoln then found himself working for the ANC's Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS), which was still operating underground beyond the grasp of apartheid. On the surface it looked like South Africa was inching away from that regime, but some who'd been ensconced within the state felt that wasn't exactly the case. DM
