OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.00pm.
CONTROVERSIAL foreign affairs official Robert McBride has accused South African police of deliberately misleading their Mozambican counterparts to ensure he was charged for gun-running, leading to his imprisonment for six months in Maputo.
McBride said he has approached the Independent Complaints Directorate to lodge a complaint against the SA Police Services team assigned to his case.
“The docket shows quite clearly that members of the SAPS deliberately misled their Mozambican counterparts in order to ensure that I was charged,” he said.
McBride has continued to insist that he was part of a National Intelligence Agency investigation into gun-running when he was arrested in Mozambique six months ago. NIA spokesman Herman Schlenter on Tuesday said McBride had never played an active role in NIA field operations.
In a statement McBride said he was following up information relating to arms suppply routes used by cash-in-transit heist syndicates, among others, when he was arrested. However, he denied that he was sent to Mozambique by either the NIA or the National Intellegence Estimates Board, which he was appointed to in December last year.
“I received information relating to arms supply routes, used by among others the people responsible for the cash heists and for much of the crime currently destroying people’s lives in our country. I followed up this information as I wished to verify it before handing it over to the appropriate agencies.”
However, McBride also said: “I also stated previously that I have been involved a number of times at an operational level with both SASS [South African Secret Service] and NIA. If they wish to deny this, so be it. I have submitted affidavits to this effect to the Supreme Court in Mozambique.”