Accused: Shadrack Sibiya
UPDATE, 1.20pm: Hawks boss Lieutenant General Mthandazo Ntlemeza submitted a warning statement to police watchdog IPID yesterday morning.
Hours later Ntlemeza’s subordinate, Gauteng Hawks boss Prince Mokotedi, laid nine charges, including treason, against IPID head Robert McBride and three others.
McBride’s investigators are probing Ntlemeza and acting Saps head Lieutenant General Khomotso Phahlane for charges including perjury, defeating the ends of justice and corruption.
Phahlane was scheduled to submit his own warning statement at the same time as Ntlemeza, but cancelled at the last minute.
McBride believes the two events are connected.
“It is serious charges that we are investigating against Ntlemeza and Phahlane because of the position they hold. But it is nothing as exotic as treason,” he said.
Mokotedi laid charges of treason, espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, corruption, intimidation and harassment, defeating the ends of justice, tax evasion and a contravention of the immigration laws.
He accused McBride, his predecessor Shadrack Sibiya, private investigator Paul O’Sullivan and crime intelligence official Captain Candice Coetzee of trying to oust president Jacob Zuma.
Both McBride and Sibiya strenuously denied the accusations.
“Prince is hearing voices,” McBride said.
Phahlane’s case has been submitted to the National Prosecuting Authority, McBride said.
Sibiya said: “The Prince is confused. He must decide if he wants to be a policeman, a politician or a pastor. All three in one confuse him and cause danger to him, because he doesn’t know where he belongs.”
Sibiya explained that a meeting did take place on December 3, but denied that any “conspiracy” against Zuma, Mokotedi or Ntlemeza was hatched.
“On December 2 I received an SMS from Paul O’Sullivan’s assistant asking for a meeting on December 3 at 3pm.”
The M&G has seen the SMS. It details an address for where the meeting would take place, but gives no further context.
According to Sibiya he didn’t know it was Radovan Krejcir’s former address.
“I had to use my GPS to get there. When I arrived, we were told the discussion was about Paul’s report ‘Joining the Dots’. He wrote it in conjunction with Afriforum. Paul asked our input, because we were mentioned in his report. That was it. We didn’t discuss pres Zuma, his son or Mokotedi.
“Mokotedi clearly knows what he should say to make the politicians angry. They want to give Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko reason to suspend McBride.”
Nine charges, including treason and conspiracy to murder, have been laid against the Independent Police Investigative Directorate’s Robert McBride, former top Hawk Shadrack Sibiya, private investigator Paul O’Sullivan and a crime intelligence officer.
In an affidavit submitted to Bedfordview police yesterday, Gauteng Hawks boss Major General Prince Mokotedi alleges the four conspired to:
1. Murder him and Hawks boss Lieutenant General Mthandazo Ntlemeza;
2. Use information gathered on Duduzane Zuma, president Jacob Zuma’s son, “to mobilise the community to revolt and pressure the president to quit office”;
3. “Mobilise for an ‘Arab Spring’ type of revolt in the country”; and
4. “Destabilise the security forces of the country and to oust the president of the country through popular revolt”.
Mokotedi alleges that the Zimbabwean rendition debacle, for which McBride and former Hawks boss Anwa Dramat have been accused, is the genesis of the alleged “conspiracy”.
On McBride’s table is a series of investigations, including investigations into Ntlemeza and the crimes against the state unit that allegedly held an employee of the South African Revenue Service hostage. McBride also wrote the report that cleared Dramat and Sibiya from involvement in the Zimbabwean rendition drama.
This comes two months after McBride was cleared by court to go back to work. He had been suspended by Police Minister Nathi Nhleko for his involvement in the rendition drama.
Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi confirmed a case has been registered alleging “a series of serious transgressions”. The Mail & Guardian has seen an affidavit drafted by Mokotedi and submitted to the police, but has been unable to contact him, as his phone appeared to be switched off.
Charges against McBride, Sibiya, O’Sullivan and Captain Candice Coetzee have been laid on the strength of an intelligence report dated December 12 and knowledge of a secret meeting held on December 3, Mokotedi says in his affidavit.
Coetzee is currently suspended for allegedly leaking classified information to O’Sullivan.
The nine charges brought by Mokotedi against the accused are treason, espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, corruption, intimidation and harassment, defeating the ends of justice, tax evasion and a contravention of the immigration laws.
The four accused allegedly “conspired” against Mokotedi, Ntlemeza, prosecutions boss Shaun Abrahams, acting police commissioner Lieutenant General Khomotso Phahlane and director general of the State Security Agency Arthur Fraser.
O’Sullivan is also said to have collected “damaging evidence” against Duduzane Zuma, the president’s son.
Mokotedi claims the four accused met on December 3 at the former house of Czech gangster Radovan Krejcir, now allegedly owned by O’Sullivan. Representatives of AfriForum and the Democratic Alliance are said to have been present.
The intelligence report, attached to Mokotedi’s affidavit, speaks of an alleged meeting at the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton on December 12. Former “DCPI [sic] employees, members of Zimbambwean [sic] intelligence agency and Serbian nationals” were said to be present.
It states that the “purpose of the meeting was to discuss the strategy of dealing with Ntlemeza, Mokotedi and the witnesses on the rendition matter which they perceived general Ntlemeza as a dangerous man who may not be leaved [sic] to run the police and who later brought major general Mokotedi to do the ground work as the major Mokotedi is familiar with the law”.
The report further indicated that Ntlemeza and Mokotedi “must be dealt with immediately include and that we should be assassinated because we are seen as the ones who are pursuing the rendition matter”, Mokotedi wrote in his affidavit.
The strategy is said to “implicate them of corruption”.
This newest development indicates an all-out war for power and control of the justice cluster.