‘National security needed maintenance’
FORMER Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) boss Robert McBride pleaded with top spy Arthur Fraser to convene a meeting of the heads of the country’s warring criminal justice system components to protect national security.
McBride told the commission of inquiry into state capture yesterday that he was so worried about the functioning of the criminal justice system, he asked Fraser, who was the State Security Agency’s director-general at the time, to organise a meeting with heads of law enforcement agencies.
According to McBride, the meetings included Fraser, ex-national director of public prosecutions Shaun Abrahams, former acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane and former SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Tom Moyane.
McBride told the commission, chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, that he impressed upon his former colleagues that the interests of the country came first.
However, McBride testified that the effectiveness of the meetings fizzled out. “It didn’t really work,” he said, adding that in any event the meetings should have been taking place to maintain national security and national interest.
McBride told Zondo: “I even sent information notes and reports to (then Police Minister Nathi) Nhleko even though he had said he didn’t want to engage with me”.
The commission also heard that Nhleko tried to appoint his chief of staff, known as Leon Mbangwa, who was in fact Zimbabwean Lionel Moyo, through the Ipid when McBride was
still suspended in 2016 and Israel Kgamanyane was the police watchdog’s acting executive director. “Ipid became a tool for the minister,” he said.
McBride said the process of vetting Mbangwa did not pick up that he was a Zimbabwean and that he had not been naturalised. He also questioned the use of the Hawks’ crimes against the state unit against him, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and senior Sars official Vlok Symington.
Hawks officers tried to force Symington to hand over legal advice that would have been exculpatory in Gordhan’s case. McBride asked: ”One can’t see how the defeating the ends of justice case against myself, (Ipid’s former national head of investigations Matthews) Sesoko and (former Limpopo head of Ipid Innocent) Khuba can be regarded as crimes against the state?”
He also detailed how criminal charges were used to intimidate Ipid investigators including police launching counter-investigations.
Shortly after McBride’s return from suspension in September 2016, Gauteng Hawks head Prince Mokotedi laid treason charges against him, Mokotedi’s predecessor Shadrack Sibiya and private investigator Paul O’Sullivan.
McBride said Mokotedi later admitted that the charge had been laid under pressure from his boss at the time, former national Hawks boss Mthandazo Ntlemeza, and that the target had been O’Sullivan, who Phahlane had been after for assisting Ipid’s investigation into the former acting top cop.
Former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Johan Booysen will testify today and tomorrow.