McBride takes on Nhleko

IPID BOSS WANTS NOTICE TO SUSPEND HIM SET ASIDE

A TITANIC legal battle will ensue this morning between Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko and police watchdog Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) boss Robert McBride.

This after Nhleko yesterday slapped McBride, the head of Ipid, with a notice to suspend him for his report into the rendition of five Zimbabwean suspects in 2010.

McBride wants the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to set the decision aside.

If Nhleko succeeds in his move, McBride will join Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (popularly known as the Hawks) bosses Anwa Dramat and Shadrack Sibiya, who are among others suspended for the rendition saga.

McBride, as was the case with Dramat and Sibiya, is arguing that Nhleko ’ s actions are illegal and unconstitutional.

“Ipid has launched an urgent interdict on the grounds of lawfulness and constitutionality,” said Ipid spokesman Moses Dlamini last night.

Nhleko ’ s spokesman Musa Zondi confirmed to Sowetan that McBride had been served with a notice of suspension on Wednesday.

“The minister sent a letter asking McBride to list reasons why he should not suspend him.

“He has gone to court to interdict the minister for suspending him when he has not been suspended yet, ” said Zondi.

Zondi said the notice to suspend McBride was in “many ways” related to the illegal rendition of the five Zimbabweans.

McBride, who was appointed as the head of Ipid last year, is accused of changing the findings of a report into the roles Dramat and Sibiya played in the renditions.

It has emerged that a draft report by Ipid in January 2014 found that Dramat and Sibiya were directly involved in what was said to be illegal renditions.

But the final report issued by McBride in March of the same year cleared the two of any wrong doing.

McBride hopes that he, like Dramat and Sibiya, will get the court to set aside the move to suspend him.

A court ruled that the suspensions of Dramat and Sibiya were invalid and unconstitutional, thereby nullifying them.

But yesterday, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria dismissed an urgent application by Sibiya to halt an internal disciplinary hearing against him.

Judge Hans Fabricius ruled that the matter brought by Sibiya was not urgent.

In his court papers last year, Dramat argued that Nhleko wanted to kick him out of his job in order squash sensitive cases that involved prominent people he was investigating.