Former head detective Vearey ‘falling foul of rogue police intel unit’

FORMER provincial head of detectives Jeremy Vearey has instructed his lawyers to submit a contempt of court report following what he said was the failure of the provincial police commissioner, Thembisile Patekile, to properly implement the Western Cape High Court’s order to reinstate his security detail.

Vearey and his family remain in hiding.

On Thursday, the high court ordered that national police commissioner General Khehla Sitole and Patekile to assign Vearey two members of the tactical response team who had been vetted and apprised of security threats against him, and that four members be provided when Vearey was required to attend court to testify or travel.

In a statement, Vearey said despite the order, only two officers reported for duty with one vehicle on Friday, as Patekile had instructed. He said this was a downgrade, as he previously had a four-member escort team with two vehicles.

“One of them told me he was called directly by the provincial acting head of legal services, Brigadier Jojo, and instructed accordingly on the deployment,” Vearey said.

He said Patekile and Jojo’s instructions did not include static protection at home, independent of the mobile in-transit protection.

Vearey said he would remain in hiding until the police management read and implemented the court order “without malice or further deliberately recklessly endangering my life”.

Whistle-blower and community activist Colin Arendse said. “The insurrection that the president routinely referred to on Friday is staring him in the face in the form of the rogue police crime intel unit.

“Colonel Charl Kinnear was assassinated after exposing them, and General Peter Jacobs was demoted after warning police management of the dangers posed by this corrupt unit. General Vearey also referred to this illegal rogue unit in his court papers as he will be testifying about them in the guns-to-gangs case next month.

“With such blatant contempt by dodgy cops, is the government really in control of the insurrection?” said Arendse.

Police spokesperson André Traut said issues of security and/or guard duties for certain individuals as a result of an identified threat were best not discussed in the public domain.