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Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) boss Robert McBride has refused to submit a warning statement to the Hawks, saying its latest move was the culmination of a campaign against him.
The priority crime investigation unit sent a letter to McBride asking him to make the warning statement by 11am on Monday, Eyewitness News reported.
In his response to the Hawks, McBride said the matter was 10 years old and had been dealt with at the time.
“Clearly, the Hawks are not acting in the interests of justice,” he said.
“The manner in which this matter is being pursued by the Hawks is similar to the way in which they pursued spurious and frivolous charges against [Finance Minister Pravin] Gordhan, which the NPA had to withdraw abruptly.”
He said he believed the move by the Hawks was related to the IPID having taken a warning statement from Hawks boss Mthandazo Ntlemeza last week, “during which he threatened that the Hawks would be taking statements against the IPID investigators”.
Taking legal advice
“It is interesting that the charge of defeating the ends of justice is not a priority crime that falls within the mandate of the Hawks, yet they are devoting a lot of resources to pursue it.”
McBride said he will take legal advice on the matter.
Eyewitness News reported that the warning statement was linked to a 2007 attempted murder case in Boksburg and a case involving a reportedly stolen BMW X5. The incidents occurred during McBride’s term as Ekurhuleni metro police chief.
Reports have emerged that senior police and Hawks investigators have been conspiring to falsely implicate McBride in the attempted murder case.
A whistleblower told Eyewitness News he was contacted by a police lieutenant colonel in 2007 to draft an affidavit to implicate McBride in the attempted murder of cash-in-transit kingpin Marco Singh.
Singh was arrested while McBride was the metro police chief.
Controversial report
In a separate matter, the state withdrew charges against McBride and his two co-accused, former director of investigations Matthew Sesoko and the former head of the IPID in Limpopo, Innocent Khuba, in November this year.
The trio was under investigation by the Hawks’ Crimes Against the State (Cats) unit for fraud and defeating the ends of justice in their investigation of former Hawks head Lieutenant General Anwa Dramat.
Dramat was accused of involvement in the illegal rendition of Zimbabweans in 2010.
The findings contained in the last report on the matter, and which McBride signed, exonerated Dramat and differed greatly from an earlier report implicating him in the renditions.
According to law firm Werksmans Attorneys, portions of statements by individuals who implicated Dramat in the illegal renditions and which appeared in the first report were left out of the second report.
McBride has maintained that the earlier report did not take all the facts into account. – News24