The police version of events surrounding the arrest of Scorpions investigator Ivor Powell appears increasingly questionable, as evidence mounts suggesting a planned operation against him, and of links to the wider battle over the future of the unit.
Powell, a former Mail & Guardian journalist, has done crucial intelligence work on some of the Scorpions’ most sensitive investigations, including those involving Jacob Zuma and Jackie Selebi, and reports not only to Scorpions Western Cape chief Adrian Mopp but also directly to national head Leonard McCarthy.
This role has earned him powerful enemies. He was personally attacked in a submission to the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into the future of the Scorpions by sacked National Intelligence Agency chief Billy Masetlha, who claimed he was in the pay of French and German spies. Powell was also mentioned in court papers lodged by Selebi in his effort to block impending corruption charges levelled by the Scorpions.
The M&G has reconstructed events leading up to and immediately following the arrest from people who were present, or who are close to those present, and it now appears unlikely that Powell was, as police claim, simply caught up in a raid targeting the gang leader he was travelling with.
Just minutes before his arrest Powell had been meeting at the Woodstock Holiday Inn with Americans’ boss Igshaan Davids (alias Sanie American), and his bodyguard, Daniel Bambiso, in an attempt to gather intelligence about recent gang killings and contraband smuggling activity.
Police issued a warrant for Davids’s arrest on December 23, believing he was driving a stolen car.
Also present was a fourth man, Franklin Gray, a former ANC intelligence operative and now security company boss.
Powell agreed to give Davids and Bambiso a lift to a nearby vehicle repair shop after the meeting, but just a few hundred metres from the hotel a heavily armed police tactical team in two cars forced the official Scorpions vehicle off the road.
The police allege that Powell attempted to evade arrest, and have told some media outlets that a ‘high speed chase†occurred.
A source who has spoken to Powell about the circumstances, however, said that this is not true. ‘A police vehicle pulled up alongside and a shotgun was pointed at [Powell]. They then cut him off. There was no chase, and no resisting arrest. It all happened very quickly,†this person said.
Another source close to Davids bears out this version.
The police have also maintained that the arrests were the product of quick reaction to a sighting of Davids, who they had been hunting, but are unable to explain convincingly how the Swat-style intervention team unit happened to be on the scene within minutes.
Superintendent Abe Enus, who is head of detectives at Kensington Police Station and the investigating officer in the case, told the M&G: ‘We circulated Davids’s details to all stations in Cape Town and he was spotted when he, Powell and Bambiso finished drinking their Johnnie Walker Black Labels at a hotel. [The intervention team] were just coincidentally the closest team to the scene.â€
Gray told the M&G that he had facilitated the meeting, and had asked Powell to drive the other two men to the vehicle shop because he was overdue for another meeting.
He said he learned of the arrest just a few minutes after it had happened when he was contacted by Sidney Simpson, a suspended inspector at Kensington Police Station, who faces corruption charges after evidence emerged suggesting that he took bribes from Davids.
But sources sympathetic to Powell say they believe Gray set him up. They point to the apparent planning of the ambush-style arrest, and to Gray’s links with Cyril Beeka, a security company boss who has been under investigation for more than a decade over his alleged links with organised crime. Powell was among the investigators who helped bring down a protection racket operating at Cape Town nightclubs that law enforcement agencies believe had connections to Beeka.
Beeka is said to have provided security services to Jacob Zuma confidante Mo Shaik at the recent ANC conference at Polokwane.
Shaik denies any connection to Beeka or to Powell’s arrest. ‘This is yet another attempt by the NIA to involve me in a matter I have nothing to do with. I will call the Minister of Intelligence and ask him to give me the same protection he gave to [Thabo Mbeki ally] Saki Macozoma,†he said.
There are also questions surrounding Gray’s presence at Kensington police station when the cars transporting Powell, Davids and Bambiso arrived.
‘I was at the police station and I saw Franklin standing there,†Davids’s wife, Razia, told the M&G.
Gray, however, flatly denied that he set Powell up, saying that he went to Kensington when he heard about the arrest. ‘If I wanted to set Ivor up, I could have done it many times when he had really been drinking. He hadn’t had that much to drink this time. Why would I set him up? He has been nothing but good to me,†he added.
Asked about his links to Beeka, he conceded that they did have a relationship, but insisted that he would not have compromised Powell on Beeka’s orders.
Gray added that Powell only learned about the warrant for Davids’s arrest at the meeting — a claim that is borne out by sources sympathetic to Powell. ‘He would have discussed that information with colleagues on his return from the meeting and decided what to do about it,†said one.
Davids’s lawyer, George Catsicadellis, said he is ‘perplexed†at the style of the arrest. ‘We’ve been in contact with the police and in assisting them in getting affidavits from the previous owners of Davids’s car. I’ve made an agreement with the police for Davids to hand himself over at 7pm that evening. My perception was that this is not such an urgent matter — we were talking to the police regularly,†he said.
Davids is a leading underworld figure in Cape Town, but it seems he had attracted additional scrutiny since he contacted a private investigator with information about police officers whom he had allegedly bribed, and who were now ‘bleeding him dryâ€, a police source told the M&G.
According to a National Intelligence Agency report obtained by the M&G, Davids employed Grey to help him trap two police officers from Kensington Police station who were allegedly transporting drugs for a rival gangster and demanding money from Davids in exchange for information. This claim was confirmed by Razia Davids.
The names of the officers are known to the M&G.
Powell was driving an official ÂScorpions vehicle at the time of the arrest, which was signed out by Mopp for work on an official project of the unit. All these vehicles have a tracking device fitted, Mopp confirmed, and evidence from this tracker, as well as a blood alcohol test performed by the police, would establish were the truth lay.
Powell was released on bail of R1Â 000 and has been placed on extended leave. He is expected to face charges of drunk driving and defeating the ends of justice.