Suspended Ekurhuleni metro police boss Robert McBride’s three main detractors are criminals who are involved in cash-in-transit heists, their lawyer says.
The Mail & Guardian can reveal the contents of a secret videotape of a consultation between Saleem Ebrahim, the three officers’ lawyer, and an unknown client at Ebrahim’s office in Fordsburg, Johannesburg. The recording was made a week ago and reveals that Ebrahim himself is allegedly involved in the bribing of Johannesburg cops.
Ebrahim has been defending Stanley Sagathevan, Itumeleng Koko and Patrick Johnson since they applied for a protection order against McBride and other senior staff. The three were close to McBride, but turned against him when they submitted affidavits to the police alleging a cover-up of McBride’s controversial car crash in December last year.
McBride has since been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, defeating the course of justice and fraud. The three will testify against him in November.
It has now emerged that the three were themselves involved in serious crimes, which their lawyer and police knew about, but managed to obtain indemnity from prosecution by turning state witness in the drunk-driving case.
Footage
| Video
Comment on the video
Caught on film ![]()
The following is a verbatim transcribed excerpt from the video recording that particularly focuses on the McBride case.
Client: How’s your case going with these guys?
Saleem Ebrahim: I’m gonna win that case, straightforward. I’ll win it. Guaranteed.
C: And now the statements that these guys gave?
SE: I got them 204 indemnity. Guaranteed. There’s no prosecution against them.
C: But now why are they fighting? Can’t they sort it out amongst themselves?
SE: They’re not fighting about the accident. They’re fighting about other things. That’s what the public is not seeing. They can implicate each other.
C: These three guys were involved in other stuff?
SE: Ja, cash-in-transit robbery —
C: So they’re doing this actually to save themselves?
SE: They’re doing it because police approached them and said: ‘Come sit down with us, this is the evidence we have against you—’ [inaudible] they [the SAPS] had voice taps, everything. Based on that we got them a 204 indemnity, they’re free from prosecution, all they got to do is give evidence in this McBride matter.
C: And before they were all together in this?
SE: They were all together.
C: Cash robberies, alles [everything]?
SE: They’re looking at it from the side, okay, now it’s not about money, now it’s about freedom.
C: Freedom, they want freedom.
SE: They want freedom. So everyone’s running in their own direction.
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The M&G is in possession of hidden camera footage in which an unknown client approaches Ebrahim to ”sort out” his pending criminal trial.
After viewing the video clip of five minutes at the M&G‘s office on Thursday, Ebrahim denied that he had ever bribed any police officer, and said it was not his voice on the first half of the video. He refused to comment on the McBride probe.
Ebrahim said he knew who secretly recorded the meeting and would lay criminal charges against that person.
At the viewing he was accompanied by a police officer from the Parkview police office who, Ebrahim said, attended as an ”independent observer”.
The video starts with the client walking into the office of Saleem Ebrahim Attorneys.
In the office, the client talks about his own pending criminal trial before he asks about the McBride case.
He tells Ebrahim who the investigating officer of his case is and Ebrahim concedes to knowing this police officer. Ebrahim then describes the police officer as a ”greedy bastard” and confirms that he has bribed him before.
Ebrahim now denies that he said this and says the ”squeaky” voice at the beginning of the tape is not his. This includes the part where he allegedly says police dockets do not disappear any more. ”What you need to do is to make sure the docket doesn’t come to court.”
He does confirm that it is his voice explaining to his client how he plans to get the case thrown out of court.
”You see, [the surname of the investigating officer] will first go to the senior, to the SPP [senior public prosecutor] and he will say: ‘There’s a weak case, this, that, whatever it is,’ then I go in and say: ‘OK, based on, on, I will stand down the matter — [inaudible] listen why case must be thrown out, then the SPP makes the decision, all right.’ If she decides it’s getting thrown out, we go back in court and we tell you, listen, all charges against you are withdrawn.”
The client then asks Ebrahim if he knows the investigating officer. ”I know him very well. Jo’burg Central — all those cops, every single — [inaudible] they come here every week to collect money. Every week!”
When asked about the McBride interdict, Ebrahim replies that he will win. ”Guaranteed” (See video above).
Robberies
On the section 204 indemnity in terms of the Criminal Procedures Act that was granted to Sagathevan, Johnson and Koko, Ebrahim confirms that his clients were involved in cash-in-transit robberies, that the South African Police Service (SAPS) knows about this and that the three men now only want freedom.
Gauteng police spokesperson Govindsamy Mariemuthoo confirmed that the SAPS will launch an investigation. ”These are very serious allegations,” he said.
The National Prosecuting Authority needed more time to respond to the M&G‘s question about why indemnity was granted to the three men.
McBride has responded through his lawyer, Roshan Dehal. McBride is ”not in the least surprised at the revelations made by Ebrahim, as the nature, quality and gravity of the available evidence both in favour of McBride’s defence and against the three metro police officers, all corroborate the correctness of what Ebrahim concedes”.
According to Dehal, the three’s statements (about the drunk-driving incident) were made to the SAPS only after they had a fallout with McBride, and well after they had made several statements exonerating McBride.
”Given what you now inform us is in the recording, it is clear that they have lied to the police, on an apparent indemnity from the police on their own criminal activity. They cannot enjoy a blanket indemnity on their serious criminal transgressions only so that they testify against McBride in a single car accident matter. But if this is true, then that in itself bears testimony to the state being hell-bent on prosecuting McBride, albeit on the clearly suspicious, questionable, and contradictory statements of the three metro police officers,” Dehal said.
McBride is ”thankful” to Ebrahim for ”conceding that which is obviously true, particularly since he acts for the three men”.
The M&G has also established that the three officers will appear on Monday before a disciplinary hearing where they will be charged on thousands of counts. Sagathevan faces 3 746 charges, Koko 1 939 and Johnson 1 396.
All three are charged with the attempted murder of heist suspect Marco Singh. In part, the charge sheet reads: ”You — did cause a civilian, Marco Singh, to be unlawfully arrested, detained, held in captivity in one of the rooms in the EMPD offices, and violently assaulted him to such an extent that the said Marco Singh had defecated, urinated [and] spewed all about the floor of the said room and came to near death.”