The trial of a former police commander threatens to expose rifts within the force
Zenzile Khoisan
President Thabo Mbeki was briefed four years ago on alleged business partnerships between Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos, some Dos Santos cronies, and Cape-based mafioso Vito Palazzolo.
The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a 1997 briefing document, addressed to the then deputy president as well as his ministers for justice and safety and security, by Andr Lincoln. At the time Lincoln headed the presidential investigative task unit, a specialist police unit since disbanded.
Lincoln has been testifying in his marathon Wynberg, Cape Town, Regional Court trial in which he stands accused of 47 corruption and theft charges relating to his unit’s investigations into Sicilian-born Palazzolo, who entered South Africa in the mid-1980s after absconding from Switzerland while serving a jail sentence.
Lincoln maintains he was framed by old-guard cops who wanted to derail his unit’s investigations. The M&G last month reported that Lincoln asked police to investigate charges against senior National Intelligence Agency (NIA) officials who he claimed had offered him bribes so he would not embarrass Mbeki and former safety and security minister Sydney Mufamadi in his testimony. He claimed he refused to “take the rap”.
Now, on top of threatening to expose vulnerabilities in the NIA, the circumstances of the trial may damage the reputation of the South African Police Service (SAPS). The M&G has a copy of a letter in which Lincoln a fortnight ago claimed there was a cover-up of the police investigation into his charges against the NIA.
Given the nature of the Machiavellian world into which Lincoln’s unit had been plunged to uncover the connections between criminal empires and their local confederates, many observers question why Lincoln is on trial today. Part of the answer may be located in the confidential document, dated October 7 1997, which Lincoln sent to Mbeki, Minister of Justice Abdullah Omar and Mufamadi.
At least one senior African National Congress politician and some senior police officers featured in the unit’s investigations into Palazzolo. But there was also an international angle, sure to have further complicated South Africa’s dilemma on how to deal with its mafia guest. The briefing document to Mbeki and his ministers detailed a number of Palazzolo’s alleged business interests in Angola.
Theses included four companies active mainly in diamond concessions. In one, Kupolu, Palazzolo was allegedly registered as a director alongside Dos Santos, with Dos Santos’s mining minister acting as a paid adviser.
In three other diamond companies Palazzolo allegedly partnered Dos Santos’s security chief, a powerful Angolan general and the governor of Luanda.
The briefing document warned: “This investigation has already identified and confirmed that Palazzolo is associated with people who are strategically positioned and who are able to provide him with protection.”
But as an addendum, the document informed Mbeki and his ministers that there was “a concerted effort by members of the SAPS to discredit this office and expose the investigation”.
Indeed, Lincoln and his unit were being investigated by the Western Cape police serious violent crimes unit.
On new year’s eve in 1997 the unit’s head, Leonard Knipe, wrote to Lincoln that “from our investigation it appears very likely that the alleged misappropriation could be nothing more than a misunderstanding or perhaps an unintentional mistake”. Less than two months later Lincoln was arrested anyhow.
Lincoln last month laid his bribe complaint with the police against NIA members, including the agency’s provincial head, Arthur Fraser.
An investigation was opened, conducted by police Senior Superintendent Jeremy Veary, supervised by Western Cape Deputy Commissioner Adam Blaauw. But within a week Veary was thrown off the case and replaced by a Commissioner Johan Ackerman. The order allegedly came from the national police detective head, Divisional Commissioner Johan De Beer.
Veary fears a cover-up is under way and has denounced De Beer as “a racist dinosaur who scraped through on a lifeline of sunset clauses”. He says he was threatened with disciplinary action if he continued with the investigation, prompting Lincoln to write a letter to De Beer.
In the letter, Lincoln charges collusion between SAPS and NIA brass in a bid to derail the investigation into the NIA members.
He writes: “I am aware of a meeting that has taken place between very senior members of the NIA and the SAPS where it was discussed how this investigation was going to be managed and covered up.”
Hellmuth Schlenther, a representative for the Ministry of Intelligence, has refused to comment on the allegations against the NIA. He said last week that the ministry regarded the matter as sub judice as it is subject to proceedings in court and a police investigation. But he added: “In principle the actions alleged to have been done are way outside of the mandate of the NIA and if it proves to be true, action will be taken.”
Lincoln’s trial resumes on January 10 next year.