Top cop on Mogoeng case

COMPUTER THEFT: OPPOSITION PARTIES FINGER STATE SECURITY AGENCY

Burglary is being regarded as an attack on the judiciary.

Acting national commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane is today expected to announce details about the recent break-in at the offices of the chief justice in Midrand.

There was a countrywide uproar after 15 computers were stolen from the office in what was perceived as an attack on the judiciary. Only specific computers containing personal information, such as residential addresses and bank accounts, of judges and other employees, were taken.

“A multidisciplinary team led by the deputy provincial commissioner of crime detection in Gauteng, Major-General Mary Motsepe, has been appointed to expedite the processing of the crime scene,” Phahlane said in a statement.

The statement added that police were investigating a separate incident in which a South Gauteng High Court judge was robbed at his home.

In some quarters, suspicion has fallen on State Security Minister David Mahlobo.

“My rational suspicion is that the State Security Agency (Mahlobo) broke into the chief justice’s office and stole computers,” Economic Freedom Fighters deputy president Floyd Shivambu tweeted on Saturday.

The chief whip of the Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen also tweeted that his money was on Mahlobo and the “kak-handed” State Security Agency being behind the break-in. A furious ANC supporter responded: “Steenhuisen… makes wild, untested allegations impugning individuals without a shred of evidence to back it up. His use of profanity on public platforms comes as no surprise to us as we have always known that to the public he presents the veneer of a principled leader, but he is nothing but a street fighter most comfortable in the gutter.”

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng hauled Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini over the coals on Thursday, which was followed by Constitutional Court Justice Johan Froneman’s scathing remarks on the failure to appoint a new distributor for the SA Social Security Agency’s (Sassa) monthly grants to more than 17 million people and the North Gauteng High Court’s evisceration of Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza on Friday, March 17.

The break-in at Mogoeng’s head office was on March 18.

Then on Monday, March 20, robbers hit the home of former social development director-general Zane Dangor, who resigned in the middle of the Sassa storm.

They roughed up his domestic worker and his son after entering the home under false pretences but police reportedly told him they couldn’t open a case because “nothing was stolen”.

Dangor said in a 702 Radio interview yesterday that one of the vehicles involved in the attempted robbery at his home may have been used to try to gain access to the home of Sassa CEO Thokozani Magwaza.

Steenhuisen makes wild, untested allegations