House of Cards: Law enforcement agencies heading for a showdown – with each other

Gauteng Hawks Head, Major-General Prince Mokotedi, who on Monday lodged charges of espionage, treason, conspiracy to commit murder, corruption, intimidation and harassment, defeating the ends of justice and tax evasion with the SAPS Bedfordview, has taken up Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) Executive Director Robert McBride’s challenge for both men to take a polygraph test which will be televised live.

McBride threw out the challenge at a press briefing he called on Tuesday after Mokotedi, who once tweeted that he was “100 percent JZ”, had lodged the charges. At the briefing McBride said Mokotedi’s charges were “yet another desperate attempt to implicate me and others in wrongdoing – which attempt can never succeed.”

IPID is currently investigating four charges against Hawks head Lieutenant-General Mthandazo Ntlemeza including defeating the ends of justice and corruption as well as Gauteng acting police commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane on a charge of defeating the ends of justice.

McBride said he had met Phahlane earlier this month “to discuss matters of mutual interest” and that IPID investigators had also taken a warning statement from Lieutenant-General Ntemeza. It was during this interaction, said McBride, that Ntlemeza had warned IPID investigators that he too would soon be taking “warning statements”.

“It is, therefore, not surprising that a case was registered against us on the very same day,” said McBride.

Speaking to Jeremy Maggs on eNCA on Tuesday, Mokotedi said he would take up the challenge for a polygraph test to be performed within the next week.

In his affidavit, Mokotedi accused McBride, Sibiya, O’Sullivan and a Captain Candice Coetzee of conspiring to “destabilise the country’s security forces and oust the president of the country through a popular revolt”.

Mokotedi charged that McBride, Sibiya and O’Sullivan had met on December 3 at a home previously owned by convicted underworld boss, Radovan Krejcir, and that has been bought by O’Sullivan. Mokotedi revealed that an intelligence source had informed him that at the meeting the men had conspired to provoke an “Arab Spring”. He also accused O’Sullivan of mobilising support and funding from abroad, hence his frequent overseas trips.

On Tuesday McBride said that since his appointment to head IPID there had been unsuccessful attempts to bring fabricated cases against him and his colleagues.

“It is no secret that the Minister of Police has been persistent in trying to get rid of me and keep me from returning to my job. The Hawks have been useful tools in that quest,” said McBride.

At the close of the press conference McBride issued the challenge to Mokotedi to take the polygraph test but also tossed out another enigmatic comment that it was those who made up the “engine room” who should be charged with high treason.

The “engine room” is believed to consist of officials who are close to President Zuma and includes Police Minister Nhleko, Hawks head Lieutenant-General Mthandazo Ntlemeza, SARS Commissioner Tom Moyane, NPA head Shaun Abrahams and Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo.

O’Sullivan, who was instrumental in building a case against former convicted Police Commissioner, the late Jackie Selebi, had, said McBride, provided credible information to the IPID.

“It is notable that matters that were reported by him against both Generals Ntlemeza and Phahlane, while I was on suspension, were never investigated by IPID. On my return I ordered that they be investigated. That is why there is this pushback,” said McBride.

The Hawks, he added, were “fabricating cases against innocent people instead of fighting crime, which threatens our democracy. As South Africans we should all be concerned that we have such people heading institutions in the criminal justice system”.

Daily Maverick has seen an affidavit by Captain Coetzee, lodged with IPID, the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and the Office of the Judge for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) last month and reporting the unlawful conduct of several high-ranking SAPS officials including a divisional commissioner, members of Crime Intelligence as well as Mokotedi.

Coetzee’s affidavit is explosive in that she details that SAPS officials and members of the Hawks had been implicated in a plot to assassinate O’Sullivan and that was orchestrated by Krejcir, whom O’Sullivan had been investigating.

Coetzee had first met O’Sullivan when she had been part of a team that had thwarted an assassination attempt in 2014. Afterwards she had been asked to “check out” rumours that O’Sullivan was a “foreign agent”.

She said she had regarded O’Sullivan as a source with regard to Krejcir and that his investigations had also played a leading role in the conviction of the Czech fugitive. Coetzee was also due to testify as a state witness in Krejcir’s trial.

Coetzee said she soon realised that O’Sullivan had reliable information that several high-ranking police officials were close to underworld figures including Krejcir and convicted murderer and businessman Robert Huang – a former business associate of President Jacob Zuma’s son Edward. 

When Coetzee flew too close to the flame she found that she had suddenly become the focus of an investigation and was later illegally suspended.

Her affidavit reveals an officer of the law who, when she had uncovered alleged criminality by high-ranking superiors in the police, had nowhere to turn but IPID.

The Hawks, under Ntlemeza, have been highly selective about who the directorate chooses to prosecute. Ntlemeza has hounded Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, and in fact lashed out when NPA head Shaun Abrahams withdrew charges against him.

The Hawks have not been quite as zealous, however, with regard to the case involving SARS second-in-command, Jonas Makwakwa, and his alleged squirrelling of R1.2-million in cash into his private bank account as well as that of his lover, also a SARS official, Kelly-Ann Elskie. In that matter the Hawks deemed it to be a SARS “internal matter”. It is still not clear whether the Hawks are investigating the matter that had been flagged by the Financial Intelligence Centre.

O’Sullivan, reacting to Mokotedi’s lodging of the complaint against him, McBride, Sibiya and Coetzee, came out characteristically with guns blazing, also challenging the Major-General to take a polygraph test.

“I hereby challenge you to take a lie-detector test, to confirm that a source really did tell you these things, against your own resignation if you fail. The test should be done at an independent institution, e.g. Polygraph Institute of South Africa,” said O’Sullivan.

He said the questions that should be asked are:

• Did you lie about the allegations in this affidavit?


• Do you know that allegations in this affidavit are false?


• Do you know who leaked the affidavit to the media?

“If you think the whole country is so stupid as to allow a self-proclaimed Zuma supporter to hoodwink them into believing this garbage, then you have proven yourself to be wholly unfit for office,” the forensic investigator said.

He described Mokotedi as “nothing more than a dishonest criminal, with a badge” who was “unlawfully appointed by a corrupt minister of police, who decided to turn a blind eye to the fact that Mokotedi resigned ahead of a disciplinary enquiry, from the NPA, after it had been shown he had deliberately leaked false information to the media”.

O’Sullivan concluded that he would not “dignify” Mokotedi’s affidavit, which he described as “a work of fiction”, until he [Mokotedi] had passed the lie detector test.

“I will however, continue with my efforts to send him and his accomplices to prison, where they all belong.” DM

Photo: The Hawks’ acting head Berning Ntlemeza )Photo: Financial Mail) and IPID’s head Robert McBride (Photo: SAPA)