‘Death threats’ for McBride three

Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi allegedly gave instructions for the three accusers of Ekurhuleni metro police boss Robert McBride to be put under police protection after receiving information from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) that their lives are in danger.

This is disclosed in affidavits filed by suspended Ekurhuleni metro police department (EMPD) officials Stanley Sagathevan, Patrick Johnson and Itumeleng Koko in the Johannesburg High Court as part of their application for a protection order against McBride and 13 other EMPD officers.

An interim order was granted in July, but later this year the court will be asked to make the order permanent.

The Mail & Guardian revealed last week that the men’s lawyer, Saleem Ebrahim, admitted on video that the three were involved in criminal activities, such as cash-in-transit heists, but obtained indemnity from prosecution for agreeing to testify against McBride in his drunk-driving case.

In another development Sagathevan states under oath that McBride himself is the subject of ‘various criminal investigations” by Gauteng police and that McBride is being investigated for ‘various activities, least of which is [McBride’s] much publicised accident”.

McBride’s lawyer, Roshan Dehal, said on Thursday that his client was not aware of any other alleged offences for which he was being investigated by the Gauteng South African Police Service (SAPS). ‘These are — glib assertions, untested, unproven and unsupported by any confirmatory or supporting affidavit from the SAPS or any other authority,” Dehal said.

Police spokesperson Govindsamy Mariemuthoo confirmed there were no other cases being investigated by Gauteng police against McBride.

In Sagathevan’s affidavit, which was signed on September 13 and is confirmed by Johnson and Koko, he draws the court’s attention to the ‘death threats”.

‘I confirm to this honourable court that the South African Police Services have informed us that this information was received by the NIA and that the SAPS in fact pre-empted the threat upon our lives, and various OB [occurrence book] entries were entered into the registers of the various police stations within whose jurisdictional areas we reside.”

The entries are attached to the affidavits and were all made on August 17 by Captain L Kekana from Gauteng’s organised crime unit, who is also the investigating officer in McBride’s drunk-driving case.

In one entry that was made at Boksburg police station for the protection of Johnson’s house, Kekana wrote that ‘patrol vehicles must patrol the house of S/Superintendent Patrick Johnson of EMPD as there are threats from the well-known members of the court case where he is a witness”.

In response Sagathevan says: ‘Our lives are placed in imminent danger. SAPS refer in such OB entries to a prominent member of the public in his personal and official capacity. I submit to this honourable court that the prominent member of the public is in fact [McBride].”

On Thursday Dehal lashed out at these allegations, calling them hearsay ‘at best”.

‘The authenticity, credibility, reliability and the veracity of these versions are all highly questionable in the absence of any confirmatory or supporting affidavits from the various authorities referred to,” he said.

Mariemuthoo denied that the three are under permanent police protection. When asked about Kekana’s OB entries, Mariemuthoo said he had ‘just spoken to the head [provincial head of detectives Norman Taioe] and he says we are not protecting them”.

A source sympathetic to McBride commented that the ‘death threats” are ‘a lot of nonsense, orchestrated, fabricated nonsense”.

The men previously alleged that McBride threatened to rape and kill their wives and children if they went to the police about his car crash.

Attached to Sagathevan’s affidavit is written correspondence between Ebrahim and Gauteng deputy police chief Richard Mdluli. In a letter dated August 29 Ebrahim asks Mdluli if his three clients are ‘the subject of any criminal investigation by SAPS”.

Mdluli replied the next day: ‘There is no criminal investigation conducted by the members of Gauteng Provincial Police against any of the three individuals regarding the matter in question currently.”

This answer strengthens the theory that the three officers received indemnity for all criminal activity they might have been involved in, as articulated by Ebrahim in the secret video recording.

Mariemuthoo did not want to comment on any matter to do with section 204 indemnities, saying ‘that is the NPA’s matter”. He did, however, confirm that the three are not being investigated by Gauteng police.

The NPA denied this week that a ‘blanket” indemnity was given to the three, saying it is restricted to their involvement in the alleged ‘cover-up” of the accident. But this does not exclude the possibility that such undertakings were given to them by senior SAPS officials.

This week the M&G acquired information regarding the arrest of alleged heist kingpin Marco Singh in Pretoria on December 4 last year. The conduct of these three officers, as well as other EMPD members, is the subject of a criminal investigation registered at the Silverton police office under the case number 77/12/2006.

Not only were warning statements taken from all EMPD members who were present at the arrest and subsequent transportation of Singh to the East Rand, but their firearms were also handed to the investigating officer Commissioner Godfrey Lebeya for ballistic tests.

Lebeya, who works at SAPS headquarters in Pretoria, this week refused to comment on the investigation.

The M&G reported earlier that Sagathevan refused to hand in his firearm when asked for it by McBride and threatened that they would change their statements about McBride’s car crash. Sagathevan, Johnson and Koko originally deposed to affidavits denying that McBride drank alcohol at the year-end function before the accident.

It is unclear why Mdluli says the three suspended officials are not under investigation when their firearms were taken in and warning statements were obtained from all other EMPD members involved in the Singh arrest.

And, according to McBride, criminal investigations were indeed conducted against the three.

Secret McBride video: The aftermath

Broken doors, wrong suspects and a R25 000 bribe. These were some of the alleged repercussions of the Mail & Guardian‘s exposé last week of a secret video recording revealing a conversation between lawyer Saleem Ebrahim and an unknown client.