Classified police files seized in corruption probe
Hawks raid Pagad member Salim Dawjee as part of investigation into top Western Cape officers
CLASSIFIED documents from internal police briefings were among items seized by the Hawks in raids in Cape Town this week.
Four different police units, including the Hawks, swooped on the businesses as well as homes of the Cape Town businessman Salim Dawjee on Thursday.
The Sunday Times has learnt that the papers found in Dawjee’s possession included documents detailing aspects of an ongoing criminal investigation into some of the Western Cape’s most senior police officers. The police took away boxes of files, computers, memory sticks, accounts and books.
Dawjee, whose luxurious home in the upmarket suburb of Plattekloof was raided at the same time as his business premises at Towbar Cape, is a friend of the Western Cape’s police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer, who is under investigation with eight senior police officers in the province.
Dawjee, a businessman from Goodwood, is a member of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad). He has for many years been involved in fitting towbars to police vehicles.
The Sunday Times has learnt that the police also confiscated documents detailing some “GForce activities” from Dawjee’s businesses.
G-Force is the paramilitary wing of Pagad and operates in small cell structures at neighbourhood level. It has been linked to acts of vigilante violence in the Western Cape, including the killing of drug dealers.
A person close to the investigation said police officers had been driving around in Dawjee’s car with police blue lights and had accepted televisions, cash, radios and donations from the businessman.
The Sunday Times has published a photograph of Dawjee’s white BMW with a blue light on the dashboard. Dawjee admitted that the car was his, but said the light belonged to his friend, Brigadier Kolindhren “Colin” Govender, station commander at Cape Town Central police station.
The Sunday Times has learnt that neither Lamoer nor any of the other police officers under investigation have obtained the necessary permission, as required under the National Police Service Act, to accept loans such as the R20 000 wedding “loan” Dawjee made to Lamoer or the plasma television sets he has provided.
“There are substantial prima facie grounds to justify a criminal corruption investigation against these police officers,” the Sunday Times was told by a well-placed source.
The Hawks refused to comment on what had been confiscated at Dawjee’s various business and residential properties.
Dawjee’s lawyer, William Booth, said after the raids that he and his client would meet the Hawks on Tuesday to go through all the confiscated documents and computers.
Dawjee’s son Zameer said his father’s troubles started “the second we challenged these police officers”.
“They’re worse than gangsters,” he said, referring to the station commander of Goodwood police station, Colonel Hansia Asaram, who laid the original charges against Dawjee and his circle of top cops.
Booth said there was no criminal investigation against Dawjee. “There is no arrest at this point and there is no docket and I don’t believe that my client is involved in any criminal activity,” said Booth.
He said his client was “quite traumatised”.
“I wish the police would just phone up in advance [of a raid],” Booth said.
The police refused to comment.