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Police watchdog Ipid’s inept Kinnear report saga has turned round to bite it

Police watchdog Ipid’s inept Kinnear report saga has turned round to bite it
Former national police commissioner General Khehla Sitole (pictured) is alleged to have withheld information from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate. (Photo: Gallo Images / City Press / Leon Sadiki)
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
7 Nov 2024
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First, a police watchdog report into why policeman Charl Kinnear did not have security at the time of his 2020 assassination was leaked and widely reported on. Then access to it was restricted. Now it has been declassified, with Kinnear’s family placed in the back seat.

It is a critical report into why Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear was not under State protection at the time of his September 2020 assassination in Cape Town when it was openly known that he was under threat.

Some of South Africa’s top police officers have been implicated.

But the way the cop watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), has handled the Kinnear report has been disconcerting.

This is because Ipid previously deemed the report “top secret” – in a manner that was later questioned in Parliament – after it had been widely reported on.

Read more: Declassified — Ipid report on cops who failed to prevent Charl Kinnear’s murder

So, Ipid restricted a highly publicised report.

And to add a rather callous tone to the saga, when Ipid finally announced on Wednesday, 6 November 2024, that it was declassifying the report, Kinnear’s wife and children heard that they had not been briefed beforehand, effectively because “the nation” was more important than them.




The contents of the Ipid report – which indicated the South African Police Service (SAPS) may have fatally failed Kinnear by not ensuring that he was protected – now seems somewhat diluted because of years of toing and froing around it.

However, that toing and froing is also critical because it exposes how the state has dealt with an exceptionally sensitive and important matter that should play a role in shaping and directing the SAPS.

Assassination and investigations


Kinnear was assassinated outside his home in the Cape Town suburb of Bishop Lavis in September 2020.

ipid kinnear Murdered Anti-Gang Unit detective, Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear.(Photo: Supplied)



At the time he was investigating various organised crime cases, as well as colleagues who were suspected of creating fraudulent firearm licences for suspects.

Read more: Killing Charl Kinnear could collapse critical cop gun corruption cases

Among those on trial in the Western Cape High Court in connection with Kinnear’s killing is organised crime accused Nafiz Modack – he was a key suspect Kinnear had been investigating.

The now-declassified Ipid report was compiled in the wake of Kinnear’s murder.

Daily Maverick has reported that Ipid said that soon after receiving a complaint about Kinnear’s assassination, it had assembled a task team. An investigation began in February 2021. 

Read more: Anti-Gang Unit was not properly formed, had no adequate resources, failed to protect Charl Kinnear – SAPS watchdog

A preliminary report on that investigation was handed to former police minister Bheki Cele in October 2021.

Daily Maverick reported extensively on this preliminary report as it had been leaked.

A final report on Ipid’s investigation was approved in May 2022. 

This was also leaked and reported on extensively.

After that, the accessibility, in other words, the classification, of the report became an issue.

This was ventilated in Parliament.

‘Moot classification’


In August 2022, Parliament’s police committee heard the Ipid report was top secret – with no reason given.

Later that year, Ipid said: “The report was classified as Top Secret due to … sensitive information, incriminating statements made under oath and related documentary evidence.”

But, as Daily Maverick reported, Ipid executive director Jennifer Ntlatseng had conceded: “With regard to the process around the Top Secret, we want to acknowledge we did not follow the Miss [Minimum Information Security Standard] process.”

Read more: ‘We were lied to’ – The fiasco of ‘top secret’ Ipid report into the assassination of senior cop Charl Kinnear

The police committee issued a press release in November 2022 about what Ntlatseng had said. 

It stated: “The committee is seriously concerned by Ipid’s revelation that due process in terms of minimum information security standards was not followed in classifying the Ipid report.

“This implies that due process was not followed and renders the classification moot. This might impact on the investigation and prosecutions going forward.”

Shortly after that, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, who was police committee chair at the time (who has since died), had said “the minister” – presumably Cele – sent a note headed “Resubmission and replacement of the Ipid Kinnear classification”.

Joemat-Pettersson had added: “The report is now classified.”

‘We were lied to’


This implied that Ipid’s Kinnear report had not been classified in the first place.

Andrew Whitfield, who was the DA’s spokesperson on the police, had even said: “I’m glad that we finally got the truth. The problem is that in [previous] meetings we were not given the truth…

“To put it more bluntly, we were lied to. We were told that the document was classified Top Secret.”

It had previously emerged that AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit was acting on behalf of Kinnear’s widow, Nicolette, on a pro bono basis.

A year ago, advocate Gerrie Nel, who heads the unit, wrote a letter to SAPS bosses.

Read more: AfriForum’s Gerrie Nel takes Charl Kinnear case, points to SAPS ‘cover-ups’ and failures

The letter dealt with “the absolute failure of the SAPS and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to address those individuals within the SAPS whose conduct enabled the tragic assassination of Kinnear”.

‘Covering up incompetence’


Nel, in his letter, pointed out that the preliminary Ipid report had basically wrapped up in 2021.

“The finalisation and failure of implementation allowed for the resignation and retirement of certain implicated members without any consequence,” he said.

“This reality ‘absolves’ Police Management from taking action against their own. It is so much easier to blame the NPA and courts should criminal prosecution not follow or be unsuccessful. 

“Indubitably, such amateurish conduct indicates a desperate scramble, which we suggest is a continued cover-up of police incompetence and conceivably embarrassing police criminality.”

Read more: ​​Ipid tells AfriForum it will legally confront top cop Fannie Masemola’s ‘inaction’ over 2020 Kinnear murder

This was the turmoil that led up to the Ipid report being declassified on Wednesday, more than four years after Kinnear was assassinated.

Daily Maverick’s Vincent Cruywagen reported that the reason Ipid decided to declassify it was because of “developments that have taken place around the issues that … compelled us to classify the report in 2022”.

Referrals for prosecution against implicated officers had been made to the Director of Public Prosecutions and disciplinary recommendations to SAPS and the Hawks.

‘Accountability to the nation’, not family


During Wednesday’s press conference, when Ipid announced it was declassifying the Kinnear report, its head of legal services Stephens Ramafoko responded to a journalist’s question about why Kinnear’s family had not been briefed about the declassification before the media briefing.

He said: “As Ipid we are not comfortable with the family not being informed in advance. However, communication will be made with the family to address this particular issue.

“The truth is that as Ipid, much as we are sympathetic with the family and what happened, we owe the accountability more to the nation than to individuals.

“And by so saying, we are not trying to be arrogant. We are saying we have not completely excluded the family from the knowledge space. We will definitely engage them and share information with them at the right time.”

https://youtu.be/P_eUyBDnzGc?feature=shared

As Daily Maverick reported on Wednesday, Nicolette Kinnear, who was at Ipid’s media briefing, but not at the invitation of the police watchdog, did not accept Ipid’s rationale.

‘Disgusting and disrespectful’


She said: “It is disgusting that our family was not invited. Ipid showed disrespect and disregard by saying that the nation has the right to know before me and my children.

“The fact that the media briefing was scheduled without our knowledge is even more disgusting. Personally, I do not want to meet with Ipid.”

ipid kinnear Nicolette Kinnear, the widow of murdered anti-gang unit detective Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear, during an interview with Daily Maverick on 2 June 2022. (Photo: Shelley Christians)



Back in 2020, Cele, in his capacity as police minister at the time, had said Kinnear’s family deserved to know what had happened to him.

“This officer has been under threat for some time.

“He was provided with police protection, but that was withdrawn at some point – now I want to know what informed that decision,” Cele said.

“This family deserves to know whether their father was failed and if so, heads must roll.”

Now, four years later, Kinnear’s wife and children have heard that “the nation” gets to know certain details about what happened, before they do.

The publicised-classified-declassified report


Ipid’s report, as documented by Daily Maverick before it was classified as top secret and before it was declassified this week, contained scathing findings.

The report concluded that two Hawks officers should be criminally charged for not acting when Kinnear’s cellphone had been illegally monitored.

Read more: ‘Kinnear case officer went over and above duties’ — Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya hits back

Ipid also found that national Hawks head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya “failed to ensure that the [Hawks] members implicated investigated the threat against the state and therefore failed to protect … the state”.

Lebeya had hit back, saying a warrant officer attached to the Hawks had alerted colleagues about the threat to Kinnear’s life.

The Ipid report found that the former head of the Anti-Gang Unit (AGU), now retired Major General Andre Lincoln, failed to ensure Kinnear’s protection.

Read more: ‘I’m being persecuted’: Cop Andre Lincoln joins Labour Court disciplinary saga over Charl Kinnear’s security

But in a related labour court matter, Lincoln stated in an affidavit: “I believe I am being persecuted by the SAPS because I have made disclosures about the inaction of my seniors.”

ipid kinnear sitole Former national police commissioner General Khehla Sitole is alleged to have withheld information from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate. (Photo: Gallo Images / City Press / Leon Sadiki)



Ipid had also lodged criminal complaints against former national police commissioner Khehla Sitole, as he allegedly failed to cooperate with its Kinnear probe.

Sitole denied this.

In February 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Sitole would step down as the country’s cop boss the following month, “in the best interests of the country”.

It is beneath these national scandals that the Kinnear family has had to try to deal with his murder and await accountability for the fact that he was not under state protection — as he should have been at the time of his assassination. DM

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