Q&A

Police brutality has been a horrifying feature of the Covid-19 lockdown. Chris Barron asked PATRICK SETSHEDI, acting head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) ...

Why is Ipid so quick to exonerate police involved in assault and murder?

Can we be specific?

Petrus Miggels, the very first lockdown death.

I appreciate I can talk to you, so I can give you the facts.

Aren’t the facts that Ipid said he died of a heart attack, exonerated the police and closed the case in spite of eyewitness accounts that he was beaten with a hammer and tasered for carrying some beers?

The facts from our side are that the investigation was not closed.

Wasn’t it reopened when a forensic pathologist linked his heart attack to the police assault?

A preliminary report was issued to say his death was caused as a result of a heart attack. Based on that, the classification of the case changed to assault and the investigation continued on the assault, not on the death. It was never closed.

But it’s no longer an investigation into police murder?

It’s currently on assault, which might lead back to the murder.

Has anyone been suspended?

At this stage nobody.

Does Ipid have the political will to hold the police to account?

Yes.

Why would a senior Ipid insider say it does not?

I can’t comment on somebody else’s view.

We hear of children being run over by police, civilians being shot, sjambokked, raided in their homes. A horrifying list, isn’t it?

It is. We need to start by professionalising the police so that they change their behaviour … We’re doing police station lectures on our Ipid mandate so that once they understand our role they can change their behaviour.

Have you spoken to the minister about that?

He has signed our strategic plan.

How independent are you from ministerial control?

We’re independent. We just happen to be a department that reports to a minister.

Can you be independent if you have to report to the minister?

I’m not sure how that makes us not to be independent. He doesn’t fiddle with the work we’re doing.

When are you going to hold him accountable for the behaviour of his police?

Our mandate is to investigate criminal conduct by the SAPS and the metro police.

Why did it take you so long to investigate their role in the murder of Collins Khosa?

We started immediately.

Why did you drop it?

Information provided was that the crime was done by the SANDF and the metro police were not concerned.

How did you get it so wrong?

The witnesses changed their statement. That’s what led us to go deeper into the matter.

And then you found they were involved?

We found they were in the same area when the incident took place.

So they were implicated?

They were implicated.