Following the withdrawal of charges against Robert McBride, lawyers for the foreign affairs official have spoken out about those who framed him. Wally Mbhele reports
More than a year after the dramatic arrest of Department of Foreign Affairs official Robert McBride on trumped-up charges of gun-running, his defence team this week finally had an opportunity to hit back at the antics of those who had framed him.
Those, particularly South African police, who had rushed to proclaim McBride guilty even before he was charged, might have scampered for cover had they come to listen to McBride’s Mozambican lawyer, Albano Silva, describing an intricate web of lies, deceit and manipulation.
Silva’s press conference at Johannesburg International airport was called after the Mozambican Supreme Court withdrew charges against McBride of gun-running, espionage and association with wrongdoers.
Silva took up McBride’s case following instructions from Jose Nascimento who, according to Mozambican law, is not eligible to defend in that country. In a classic act of demolition, for the first time since the McBride affair started, Silva gave the South African media a comprehensive picture of all the characters involved in setting up McBride, including state witnesses, most of whom are linked to the shady activities of the apartheid government.
This episode vindicated the Mail & Guardian’s consistent revelations – amid widespread scorn and cynicism up to the highest level of government – that McBride’s arrest on March 9 last year was a well-co-ordinated South African police trap orchestrated with the assistance of two of his co-accused.
It was the M&G which first exposed Vusi Mbatha and Alex Huambo as Mozambican gun- smugglers – both of whom have a long history of working as informers with the former South African police and military intelligence. Curiously, both men arrested with McBride were to be used as state witnesses against him.
Mbatha was allegedly the author of a document which claimed a plot among prominent African National Congress politicians, including McBride, to overthrow the South African government. His document bore similarities with the charge sheet drawn up by the Mozambican police against McBride. The document became known as the Meiring report, after General Georg Meiring, then chief of the South African National Defence Force, who submitted the report to President Nelson Mandela. Meiring retired prematurely after a panel of judges termed the report “flawed”.
Silva took time this week to give a graphic description of the characters of Mbatha and Huambo. He filled in the picture of how South African police – with the help of their Mozambican counterparts – manipulated the process to fabricate a story against McBride. The two police agencies were described as dangerous manipulators who deserved investigation themselves.
Shortly after McBride’s arrest, he said, police embarked on a comprehensive and elaborate scheme to frame McBride. This they did in a spirit of vengeance and deep-seated disloyalty to the new democracy in South Africa.
Mbatha, according to Silva, is also known as Manuel Alfeu, Manuel Nhanombe, Vusi Madida, etcetera. “He is the bearer of false documents handed to him by the South African police … He possesses the South African passport which reflects that he was born in South Africa at a place called Wesbanke and yet there is no such place in South Africa,” said Silva.
Simultaneously Mbatha has a South African identity book which has another birth date and another birthplace. But other documents show he was born in Mozambique. “His parents and uncle were interviewed,” he said, adding that it was ascertained that Mbatha is 24 years old.
“I believe statements by this man do not deserve any type of investigation … He’s the author of another statement where he denied being the author of a statement about a plot to overthrow the government of President Mandela …
“Those statements were authored by South African Police Service members who tried to manipulate the investigation. Mbatha was promised liberty and money to sign that statement. This guy is a poor soul, a poor devil, almost an illiterate who is obviously doing work for the police who arrange false documents for him to operate … He can’t deserve any credibility …”
If the Mozambican court “wants this man, they can’t find him because he does not have a residential address. They have no means of getting him. He is linked to the former regime and has proved to be an enemy of the new political dispensation.”
Turning to Huambo, Silva claimed that the man has confessed to smuggling weapons from Mozambique to South Africa. Previously it had been claimed that besides working with elements of the South African police, Huambo’s clients in South Africa included warlords linked to the Inkatha Freedom Party in Soweto. But, Silva said, “I don’t know whether it’s true that he was selling guns to the IFP.”
Silva said questions remained: “Who took weapons to his house? Was McBride someone who truly wanted to buy weapons from this man? Was there any confirmation or an attempt to find out if Huambo was still an arms dealer?”
“Who was supplying him with weapons and who facilitated their passage through the border, and what relationship exists between those weapons and violence?” asked Silva, referring to weapons which were found in Huambo’s Mozambican flat after both McBride and Mbatha’s arrests. That investigation alone, he said, should have involved McBride’s assistance.
Silva said a consideration about the quality of information attributed to secret police on both the South African and the Mozambican sides has to be given. “These people are very dangerous. They forge documents to implicate people. Their documents do not show any scientific basis. They are simply false.”
It was the close of yet another chapter in the controversial life of McBride. Equally so, the closing of this chapter could open yet another, as McBride prepares to sue Assistant Commissioner “Suiker” Britz, who went to Mozambique hours after McBride’s arrest and issued statements claiming McBride was guilty.
“Britz found me guilty even before I was charged. Even after charges against me have been dismissed, he continues to speak of me being guilty. He was censured by the minister for his utterances but he still continues. His evidence seems to be based on the evidence of the Meiring report. I know they are still after me,” said McBride.
Britz is soon to retire from the police service.