Missing dockets related to the attempted murder and murder cases of Oupa Ramogibe were found in suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli’s former office safe, a witness testified on Tuesday. Nico de Goede – Mdluli’s successor as head of detectives at Vosloorus police station in 1999 – told the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court that when he took over Mdluli’s office, he could not find the keys to the office safe. He then contacted Mdluli telephonically to inquire about the keys and a week later, the keys were handed to Legoeder via someone else. When de Goede opened the safe and looked inside, he discovered dismantled dockets connected to Ramogibe’s two cases. De Goede said not only did he find it “odd” that the dockets’ binding pins were removed and the contents disassembled, it was also strange that they were in the safe instead of being filed and registered officially. He handed them over to Lieutenant General Amos Mashigo who then asked him to investigate but he refused. When Mdluli’s lawyer Ike Motloung asked him why he declined, de Goede said: “I didn’t want to commit career suicide by investigating Mdluli … I got privileged information that he was one of the guys on his way up.” De Goede would not expand on this “privileged information”. After de Goede told the court that stealing dockets is a crime, Motloung said he should be charged for obstructing the ends of justice by failing to write a police statement when he found the dockets in 1999. De Goede disagreed, saying he had left the matter in the capable hands of Mashigo. On March 31 this year – the day that Mdluli was arrested – he was then contacted and interviewed by the Hawks who subsequently took his statement five days later, said de Goede. On Friday, former investigating officer Johannes du Plessis testified that the Ramogibe case dockets had disappeared from the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court. After de Goede told the court where he found the dockets, Motloung said “there’s no evidence that the dockets ever went missing” and Mdluli would refute de Goede’s testimony. Colonel Kobus Roelefse, the current investigating officer, testified thereafter and said the dockets were stolen but he does not know by whom. Roelefse will continue testifying on Wednesday in the inquest probing the death of Ramogibe, Mdluli’s former love rival. It is the finalization of this inquest that will determine the refiling of criminal charges against Mdluli and his alleged accomplices Warrant Officer Samuel Dlomo, Lieutenant Colonel Mtunzi-Omhle Mtunzi and Colonel Nkosana Ximba. This story was first published by the Mail & Guardian Online on September 25 2012. * Got a tip-off for us about this story? Email [email protected] 
The M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit initiative to develop investigative journalism in the public interest, produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za for all our stories, activities and sources of funding.