Caught in SAPS factional crossfire, Brigadier Sonja Harri finally gets a hearing

SAPS Brigadier Sonja Harri, who has been instrumental in solving several high-profile sexual offences, including the brutal murder of Anene Booysen in 2013, will finally face charges of misconduct on 26 September 2019.

Daily Maverick has reliably learned that senior officers from outside the Western Cape have been appointed to hear the matter, which has dragged on for more than two years. Harri has more than 30 years’ experience and is considered one of the finest detectives in the region when it comes to solving sexual assault, rape and murder cases.

In January 2018, Mbotho was also named in the sensational bail hearing of five alleged Cape Town “mafia” kingpins heard in the Magistrate’s Court.

In that matter, the court was told that one of the accused, “businessman” Nafiz Modack, had boasted (and had been recorded saying) that Mbotho, along with Major-General Mzwandile Tiyo, head of the region’s crime intelligence unit, were working with the rackets.

Mbotho was appointed in June 2016 as Western Cape deputy commissioner of detectives by disgraced former acting commissioner Khomotso Phahlane and was, in this position, Harri’s superior.

Mbotho’s appointment had sidelined then Head of Detectives, Major-General Jeremy Vearey, who had been Harri’s previous commanding officer. Phahlane also sidelined then-Western Cape Intelligence head, Major-General Peter Jacobs, appointing Major-General Mzwandile Tiyo to the post. Both Vearey and Jacobs later won a Labour Court action challenging Phahlane’s arbitrary appointments.

Phahlane’s reshuffling of SAPS in the Western Cape has led to prolonged factional battles in the SAPS which continue to play out to the detriment of crime enforcement in the region.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) investigated the complaint, originally lodged by Colonel Charl Kinnear, and has since forwarded the docket to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Kinnear headed an investigation into Modack and his co-accused Colin Booysen, Ashley Fields, Jacques Cronje and Carl Lakay.

Charges of extortion, defeating the ends of justice and corruption against the SAPS members were investigated by Ipid.

In her letter to Cele detailing her ordeal at the hands of fellow officers, Harri wrote, “Mbotho subjected me to a sustained campaign marked by incidents of humiliation, bullying, undermining my authority and compromising my dignity and my psychological well-being from the date he took over as my superior in September 2016 until I was booked off sick in April 2017.”

Harri, in writing to Cele, expressed concern that she could have been subjected to abuse by fellow officers “without “any institutional support”.

The charges Harri faces include failing to attend meetings as well as a failure to provide documentation for assessments and failing to amend her performance contract.

The final charge sheet was later accompanied by multiple additional charges, and Mbotho had elected to proceed with the disciplinary investigation “without once calling me to discuss my response to the allegations or ascertain whether I had an explanation for my conduct or whether I was willing to accept responsibility for my conduct and agree to corrective steps”.

Harri maintains she had been “caught in the cross-fire of a broader campaign being waged between senior officers in the police in the Western Cape” and that she was “deemed to be aligned to a certain ‘camp’ and victimised because of my perceived affiliation to that camp”.

Daily Maverick previously offered the minister of police and the national and provincial commissioners of police the right to reply to Harri’s allegations about Mbotho’s conduct. However, Sergeant Noloyiso Rwexana, of the SAPS Western Cape Media Office said the issue “is between employer and employee” and that the SAPS “is not prepared to discuss this in the public domain”.