Mail & Guardian reporters
National Police Commissioner George Fivaz has quietly ordered an investigation into an undercover police unit that reports directly to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki.
Members of the Cape Town-based unit, led by a former bodyguard of President Nelson Mandela, believe the action against them is the result of their investigations into high-ranking police officers involved in organised crime and Third-Force activity dating back to the previous government.
But police detractors of the unit, from both old guard and African National Congress backgrounds, claim the units director, Andre Lincoln, has become too close to crime syndicate bosses himself; that the unit has overstepped its authority and has proved to be inefficient.
Lincoln, a former member of the ANCs department of intelligence and security (DIS) and later of the powerful National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, has previously said his unit is working on foreign crime syndicates in the city.
Fivaz this week said his investigation was merely an inspection of the unit and its use of resources, which is at a sensitive stage. He declined further comment. But the Mail & Guardian has established that the probe is headed by the Western Capes top sleuth, serious violent crime division head Leonard Knipe, and that checking wild allegations against the units members is part of his brief.
Among the claims is the alleged close relationship of Lincoln with suspected foreign and local crime leaders in Cape Town. Lincolns contacts include Vito Palazzolo, a notorious Sicilian businessman residing in Franschhoek.
Lincoln is on friendly terms with many of the countrys top ANC politicians. Mbeki has previously warned that the government is targeting police officers who are engaged in criminal activities. Minister of Justice Dullah Omar also claims that a Third-Force element is involved in fanning violence on the Cape Flats a claim possibly based in part on intelligence provided by Lincolns unit.
While Fivazs action against Lincoln and his unit may be seen as a new episode in the spat between Fivaz and his political masters earlier this year when Fivaz complained of political interference and Minister of Safety and Security, Sydney Mufamadi of police inability to reform senior police officers in the Western Cape this week claimed Mbeki realised he had been misled and would not object to Fivazs intervention.
Knipe is three weeks into his probe, and is dealing with Fivaz through Western Cape police commissioner Leon Wessels. He has still to contact Lincoln. Lincoln declines to comment on Fivazs action. I havent spoken to Fivaz, and I dont want to get into a situation where were contradicting each other.
An officer who resigned from Lincolns 11- man team confirms that Knipes investigation is serious, but declines to give further details or be identified, fearing reprisals. But other unit members say they believe the probe is focused on procedural irregularities.
Unit members also believe the allegations against them stem from their attempts to root out corrupt senior policemen. They add that Fivaz, as well as Mbeki, has been briefed on the units work in monthly reports.
Since it was created last year, the units reported activities include pursuing a foreign-run racket which is extorting around R8-million from businesses and nightclubs in Cape Towns city centre. Lincolns men have also pounced on a German tax dodger. Lincoln personally briefs members of the Cape Town press.
But the M&G has established that its main focus is on police officers involved in organised crime. Such work, which has thrown up a large number of police names, has sparked fierce opposition from other police officers. Symptoms of that opposition emerged this week, with a string of highly damaging allegations level against the unit, in particular Lincoln.
One top police insider in Pretoria alleges that Lincoln has been socialising in Cape Towns bars and night clubs with the very people his unit is supposed to be tracking.
Palazzolo absconded from a Swiss jail in 1986 after serving one year of a five-year sentence on drugs-related charges. He surfaced in the Eastern Cape, where he earned the patronage of Ciskei and National Party politicians, who smoothed his stay. The scandal cost NP East London MP Peet de Pontes his political career. Palazzolo was deported from South Africa as an illegal immigrant in 1991, but he was soon back.
The M&G has established that DIS members also had a degree of contact with Palazzolo in the early 1990s. This contact was one factor in a drugs probe against three DIS members, two of them also bodyguards of Mandela, who were never charged but had to leave the DIS.
Another specific allegation against the unit is that it removed a convicted fraudster from Pollsmoor prison last year without proper authorisation after the prisoner promised to co-operate in an investigation. He has not been returned to Pollsmoor in spite of the fact that his co-operation has led to no arrests to date.
Lincoln denies such claims, adding that there is much confusion about what his unit is supposed to be doing, and that race may also be a factor. Mbeki and Mufamadi are out of the country.