Robert McBride accused of stealing incriminating USB stick from Hawks

Robert McBride is now the subject of a criminal investigation – over an allegation that he stole a memory stick containing evidence that could implicate himself as well as Hawks bosses Anwa Dramat and Shadrack Sibiya in unspecified “wrongdoing”.

City Press has learnt the Hawks are now investigating a case of defeating the ends of justice against the head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) after he personally went to the office of suspended Gauteng Hawks head Shadrack Sibiya to take possession of the memory stick that was kept in the walk-in safe.

A senior Hawks officer told City Press on Saturday they were also investigating the relationship between McBride and Sibiya following allegations they received that Sibiya helped McBride evade arrest and a blood test after he allegedly drove drunk and crashed his car after a Christmas party in 2006.

Neither McBride nor Sibiya were available for comment on this allegation on Saturday.

McBride, however, is hitting back and is investigating how acting Hawks head Mthandazo Ntlemeza came to be in possession of the IPID docket into the illegal rendition of five Zimbabweans. He is seeking legal advice on what charges to lay against Ntlemeza.

On Thursday night, McBride filed an urgent application at the North Gauteng High Court in which he asked for an interdict against Police Minister Nathi Nhleko suspending him.

Nhleko had sent him a letter on Wednesday giving him notice of his intention to suspend him.

In his affidavit in court papers, McBride said he met Nhleko and Ntlemeza in Cape Town in February and was told he had been accused of “raiding” Gauteng Hawks provincial headquarters.

'Bugging device'

Two senior sources, one from the Hawks and another from IPID, told City Press the criminal investigation to “nail” McBride was still in its early stages.

“There is an investigation that focuses on whether McBride stole the memory stick, which we believe contained incriminating evidence implicating Dramat, Sibiya and himself,” said the senior Hawks source.

The device has been handed to the State Security Agency for analysis.

However, in another affidavit, Sibiya says two colonels from the Crime Intelligence Unit arrived at his offices in Parktown asking for the device because it belonged to their then suspended boss, Lieutenant General Richard Mdluli, who wanted it back.

Sibiya, who was also suspended at the time, then asked McBride to collect it and examine its contents “to see if it was not a bugging device that was installed unlawfully to monitor my communications”.

The Hawks investigation against McBride relies on an affidavit by Sibiya’s chief administration clerk, Pearl Angel Pomuser, which says McBride and two other men arrived at the provincial headquarters and demanded the device.

McBride allegedly threatened Pomuser with criminal charges if she did not comply, and he was then given the “Data 6 line box” device.

In his letter to Pomuser, McBride said IPID was “investigating a case of systematic corruption” and needed to examine it.

Criminal charges

Last week, City Press reported that McBride faced suspension for allegedly changing the findings of a report into the roles Dramat and Sibiya played in the renditions. The differences between the draft report that implicates the two and the final version that clears them is under way by law firm Werksmans Attorneys.

The senior Hawks officer said that if McBride were found to have played a role in altering the report, he would face additional criminal charges of defeating the ends of justice.

A source within the Sandton law firm told City Press they were still analysing the reports and had asked Nhleko for another two weeks to complete their investigation, which was initially due on Friday.

“Our mandate has been extended to a month,” the source said.

In his notice of intention to suspend McBride, Nhleko accuses McBride of deliberately misleading Dramat and Sibiya by saying they had been cleared of their role in the renditions when they had not.

McBride is also accused of not informing Nhleko that there were two reports and of undermining the minister by writing to the parliamentary portfolio committee on police two weeks ago to request a special sitting to explain the differences in the reports.

Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi declined to comment on Saturday, referring questions to police ministry spokesperson Musa Zondi.

Zondi confirmed Nhleko had asked McBride “in the letter whether taking the device could not be construed as tampering with evidence”.

In 2011, McBride was sentenced to two years in prison for drunken driving and an effective three years for trying to defeat the ends of justice.

He successfully appealed his conviction on both counts in 2013.

Source: News24

Police Minister launches investigation into Robert McBride

Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko has launched an investigation into Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) Head Robert McBride’s handling of the case involving senior Hawks officials and their role in the rendition of Zimababweans in 2010.

It’s understood Ipid filed conflicting reports on the case.

The City Press is reporting Nhleko has accused McBride of changing the findings on the report allegedly in an attempt to protect the Hawks bosses.

The police ministry has also confirmed that Nhleko called the IPID boss asking to explain why there were differences in the two IPID reports.

Spokesperson Musa Zondi, “The minister has asked Werksmans Attourneys to look into both reports and come back to us as soon as possible and tell us when exactly these reports were changed and what the reasons were.”

Weekend reports suggest McBride could soon be joining Hawks boss Anwa Dramat and Shadrack Sibiya on suspension, in the wake of the illegal rendition of five Zimbabweans from Diepsloot, over the Beitbridge Border Post in 2010.

The police minister suspended the pair late last year however, the High Court in Pretoria rendered Dramat's suspension null and void.

However, the Police Ministry last month confirmed that Dramat has not reported for duty, and is on leave by mutual agreement with Nhleko.

Source: EWN

Mdluli meddling exposed in prosecutor's attack on NPA

Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach has launched a devastating attack on the acting national director of public prosecutions, Nomgcobo Jiba, accusing her of acting with “an ulterior purpose” in suspending her, allegedly to stop the prosecution of crime intelligence supremo Richard Mdluli. Breytenbach’s allegation forms part of a challenge to her suspension lodged a week ago with the Labour Court in Johannesburg.

Breytenbach was suspended by Jiba on April 30 this year, purportedly in relation to a complaint about her conduct in the prosecution of Imperial Crown Trading (ICT), the company accused of fraud and ­forgery in its battle to secure mineral rights over the giant Sishen iron ore mine. “Her [Jiba’s] real purpose was to stop me from prosecuting a senior police officer, Lieutenant General Richard Mdluli, on charges of fraud and corruption,” said Breytenbach. “She used the ICT complaint against me as an excuse to suspend me.”

The National Prosecuting Authority has denied that the disciplinary steps against Breytenbach have anything to do with the Mdluli matter. Breytenbach’s court papers deliver an indictment of the prosecuting authority’s two key decision-makers in the Mdluli matter – Jiba and advocate Lawrence Mrwebi – both appointees of President Jacob Zuma. Breytenbach’s application signals that judicial and public scrutiny of the Mdluli scandal will expand to the prosecuting authority, notably through allegations of improper decisions by Mrwebi, supported by Jiba, to withdraw charges against Mdluli. It comes in the week North Gauteng High Court Judge Ephraim Makgoba delivered a hammer blow to attempts to politically manage the police side of the Mdluli investigation. Makgoba granted an urgent application by lobby group Freedom Under Law for Mdluli to be interdicted from carrying out any functions as a police officer.

Mdluli will be barred from office pending a full judicial review of the various decisions to abandon corruption and murder charges against him, to terminate internal police disciplinary steps against him and to reinstate him as head of crime intelligence. Now Breytenbach’s application has added fuel to Freedom Under Law’s fire by providing a detailed account of the way in which Mrwebi and Jiba appeared to bend over backwards to protect Mdluli.

The Breytenbach documents reveal that:

• The stated basis for Breytenbach’s suspension was that she had “abused her authority” in the ICT case. It was based on a complaint laid by ICT lawyer Ronnie Mendelow in a letter dated October 31 2011, but she was suspended only six months later, after she had come into critical conflict with Mrwebi and Jiba over the Mdluli prosecution.
• Mdluli’s attorneys delivered representations by hand to Mrwebi in his capacity as national head of the Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit on November 17 2011, although he had not yet been appointed to that post and was officially appointed only on November 25. Mrwebi forwarded the representations to Breytenbach on November 21, requesting a full report by the 25th.
• The representations were based largely on what Breytenbach dismisses as “wild and unsubstantiated allegations” of a conspiracy by the Hawks and police management to falsely implicate Mdluli in the 1999 murder of his former lover’s husband and subsequently to nail him for taking a personal benefit from cars purchased by the crime intelligence secret fund. The latter formed the basis of the corruption case Breytenbach intended to prosecute.
• Much of the evidence for this “conspiracy” is drawn from affidavits by three crime intelligence agents and Mdluli himself. They repeat what Colonel Ronnie Naidoo of crime intelligence told them at a meeting with Mdluli at the Emperors Palace casino on October 27 2011, while Mdluli was ostensibly suspended.
• Naidoo reported to Mdluli that Hawks boss General Anwa Dramat and senior generals Mzwandile Petros and Godfrey Lebeya had begged national commissioner Bheki Cele to dismiss Mdluli before Cele himself was suspended.
• It appears these same affidavits were attached to Mdluli’s November 3 letter to Zuma, in which he made the same conspiracy allegations.
• In overturning Breytenbach’s decision to prosecute Mdluli, Mrwebi claimed to have “consulted with” the North Gauteng director of public prosecutions, advocate Sibongile Mzinyathi, as required by law, but this has been denied.
• Breytenbach alleged: “I later understood from advocate Mzinyathi that advocate Mrwebi had merely mentioned to him that he was considering the charges against General Mdluli and did not consult him on their withdrawal.”
• The sole reason Mrwebi advanced for his decision was that, in his view, the investigation of the corruption charges against Mdluli was the exclusive preserve of the inspector general of intelligence (IGI), an argument not contained in the representations from Mdluli’s lawyers.
• Breytenbach noted: “My understanding all along was that, contrary to advocate Mrwebi’s assertion, the IGI did not regard it as her function to undertake any criminal investigations. She confirmed as much in a letter to the acting national commissioner dated March 19.”
• In that letter, the inspector general stated: “The mandate of criminal investigations rests solely with the police. As such, we are of the opinion that the reasons advanced by the NPA in support of the withdrawal of the criminal charges are inaccurate and legally flawed.”
• When Breytenbach conveyed the inspector general’s letter to Mrwebi, his response was to demand to know why his confidential memorandum on the withdrawal of charges had been disclosed to the inspector general.
• In an extraordinary outburst, Mrwebi wrote back to Breytenbach: “The view of the IGI, following your solicitation of her opinion on the NPA decision on the matter, based on a document which the police or anybody else was not even legally entitled to possess, is for your consumption and does not affect the decision … That decision stands and this matter is closed.” Breytenbach commented: “This response ... was, with the greatest of respect, wholly irrational.”
• When Breytenbach and a colleague prepared a detailed appeal to Jiba to reconsider Mrwebi’s decision, it appears Jiba was content to let Mrwebi respond. That response makes it clear Mrwebi’s real reason was his acceptance of Mdluli’s conspiracy claims, relying on additional secret evidence.
• Mrwebi wrote: “Having been provided with further information on the matter and having been privy to other classified, confidential and high-level discussions with police management, I am concerned that our actions in the matter may be interpreted, justifiably, as amounting to serious abuse of the legal process and as being motivated by ulterior purposes. It is my considered view that it will therefore not be in the interests of justice for the NPA to be further involved in this matter.”
• Concluding that her suspension is unlawful, Breytenbach stated: “I submit that the ineluctable inference from the history of my suspension … is that its purpose is to remove me from office and so prevent me from proceeding with the prosecution of General Mdluli.”

The authority will oppose her application, but has yet to file its response.

The two interlinked cases – Freedom Under Law’s high court review and Breytenbach’s labour court challenge – threaten to expose direct political meddling in decisions about Mdluli.

Government may attempt to manage the fallout by appointing a new national commissioner and has already launched a ministerial task team in an apparent attempt to bolster Mdluli’s conspiracy claims, but the Mdluli tsunami seems unstoppable.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Congo: Security Forces Killed 33 in Election Season, U.N. Says

Security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo committed serious human rights violations, including killings, torture and arbitrary arrests, during the period around national elections last year, according to a United Nations report released Tuesday.

The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in Congo found that at least 33 people were killed in the capital, Kinshasa, by security forces in November and December, and that at least 83 were wounded. More than 265 were arrested, the report said. “We have heard multiple accounts of Republican Guards shooting live ammunition into crowds and of the torture of arbitrarily detained individuals,” said the United Nations’ top human rights official, Navi Pillay. The report said the government opened an investigation into the violations in December.

Source: New York Times

Use of ‘Conflict Minerals’ Gets More Scrutiny From U.S.

An iPhone can do a lot of things. But can it arm Congolese rebels? That is the question being debated by a battalion of lobbyists from electronics makers, mining companies and international aid organizations that has descended on the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent months seeking to influence the drafting of a Dodd-Frank regulation that has nothing to do with the financial crisis. Tacked onto the end of that encyclopedic digest of financial reform is an odd provision. It requires publicly traded companies whose products use certain minerals commonly mined in strife-torn areas of Central Africa to report to shareholders and the S.E.C. whether their mineral supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The measure is aimed at cutting off the brutal militia groups that have often taken over the mining and sale of so-called conflict minerals to finance their military aims. Just about every company affected by the law says they support it, but many business groups have also been pushing aggressively to put wiggle room in the restrictions, calling for lengthy phase-in periods, exemptions for minimal use of the minerals and loose definitions of what types of uses are covered.

Nearly every consumer product that includes electronic parts uses a derivative of one of the four minerals: columbite-tantalite, which when refined is used in palm-size cellphones and giant turbines; cassiterite, an important source of the tin used in coffee cans and circuit boards; wolframite, used to produce tungsten for light bulbs and machine tools; and gold, commonly used as an electronic conductor (and, of course, jewelry). Given their broad application, the minerals have been a primary target of humanitarian groups concerned about genocide, sexual violence, child soldiers and other issues that have been common outgrowths of conflicts in Central Africa. “We don’t think you need to have people being killed in order to have these metals in our cellphones,” said Corinna Gilfillan, who heads the United States office of Global Witness, which has worked on the issue for several years.

But manufacturers question the effectiveness — not to mention the practicality and expense — of tracing every scrap of refined metal back to its original hole in the ground. “The challenge is that conflict minerals are a symptom,” said Rick Goss, vice president for environment and sustainability at the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group. “The entrenched powers in these countries have plenty of other means to raise money. Simply cutting off one source of revenue to a warlord or military rulers is not going to stop the genocide.”

The Dodd-Frank law on conflict minerals is already having an effect in Eastern Congo, damping or halting production at many mines even before the disclosure regulations for companies are in place. “It is causing, I would say, a sort of embargo on traders and diggers in Eastern Congo,” Serge Tshamala, an official at the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The longer it takes the S.E.C. to come up with guidelines, the worse it is for our people.” Mr. Tshamala and other Congo government officials met with the agency’s staff members in June, urging them to speed completion of the regulations.

The agency is moving slowly, however. The Dodd-Frank law set an April 2011 deadline for completion of the rules. After proposing regulations in December 2010, the agency took comments for 30 days, and received so many suggestions that it extended the period by a month. After missing the April deadline, the agency in October conducted a roundtable for its commissioners to hear directly from manufacturers, mining companies, advocacy groups and institutional investors. This month, Mary L. Schapiro, the agency’s chairwoman, said the agency hoped to complete the process “in the next couple of months.”

The commission already has decided to include a phase-in period to allow companies time to build networks to trace their mineral supply. But an exemption for use of trace amounts of the metals is unlikely, Ms. Shapiro said. As Bennett Freeman, a senior vice president for sustainability research and policy at Calvert Investments put it during the roundtable last year, a very small amount of gold is used as a conductor in a cellphone, “but when one takes into account the fact that there were 1.6 billion cellphones sold globally last year, that adds up to be a very significant volume of that particular metal.”

Still undecided — and the subject of more than 100 meetings between lobbyists and S.E.C. officials since the rule was proposed — is just how the commission will decide who is covered by the conflict minerals requirement. The law says that the minerals must be “necessary to the functionality or production of a product manufactured by” a company. Simple as it seems, that definition gives rise to a tangle of questions. Is mining “manufacturing”? Is a coffee can made with tin “necessary to the functionality” of the coffee being sold?

The hair-splitting answers to those questions will be the basis on which the law could be challenged in court, and it is that prospect that accounts for much of the agency’s deliberate progress in fashioning the rules. Administrative law requires an agency like the S.E.C. to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of rules. Last year, a federal appeals court cited insufficient cost-benefit research in striking down one of the agency’s new regulations, and S.E.C. insiders say that decision has the agency operating in perpetual fear of a repeat occurrence.

There is little agreement on what it will cost companies to comply. The agency estimates companies will have to spend $71 million to comply with its regulations. The National Association of Manufacturers estimates the regulations will cost $9 billion to $16 billion. Whatever the answer, part of the burden would fall on a given company’s supply chain — companies, that is, that are very likely not to be covered by the regulation’s reporting requirements, which cover only publicly traded companies.

Irma Villarreal, chief securities counsel for Kraft Foods, said during the S.E.C. roundtable that Kraft produced 40,000 distinct products and used 100,000 suppliers, creating a Herculean task of auditing supply chains for conflict minerals. Nonprofit groups that support the new regulation say a growing number of companies — Intel, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard among them, according to the Enough Project, a nongovernmental organization that works against genocide and crimes against humanity — have already made significant steps to inspect and adjust their supply lines to avoid tainted sources of conflict minerals. “Our hope,” said Darren Fenwick, a senior manager of government affairs for the Enough Project, “is that the rule is strong enough that companies in industries that aren’t doing anything will start to feel the pressure in their supply chains.”

Source: New York Times

Congo fixer wins success-fee claim against Vodacom

Vodacom has been been ordered to pay a politically connected fixer $21-million (R159-million) this week by a court in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but the episode could end up costing the mobile operator almost twice that amount. On the phone from Kinshasa this week, Moto Mabanga, the South African based fixer who was awarded the money by the court, said he reserved the right to go after the $19.6-million (R149-million) he felt he was still owed.

The Mail & Guardian initially reported on the dispute between Mabanga’s company, Namemco Energy, and Vodacom in August 2010. At the time, Mabanga, who consulted in the DRC for Vodacom, was suing the mobile conglomerate for R396-million in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg. The amount related to consulting work Mabanga did for Vodacom in the DRC between May 6 and July 31 2007 and September 12 2007 and August 31 2008. The disputed amount of $40.8-million relates to a “success fee” that Mabanga claimed was negotiated between himself and Vodacom.

According to the consultancy agreements between Vodacom and Namemco Energy, Mabanga was tasked with advising Vodacom on economic, sociopolitical and security conditions in the DRC, providing advice and assistance on “government relations issues” in the the country, advising and assisting in the relationship between Vodacom and its DRC partner, Congolese Wireless Network (CWN), ensuring that Vodacom’s DRC staff were safe and not harassed or obstructed from doing their jobs, identifying parties interested in buying CWN’s 49% shareholding in Vodacom Congo and securing visas for Vodacom staff to enter the DRC.

This week Mabanga said he had had to change his course of action, switching his legal challenge from South Africa to the DRC, after he heard about a year ago that Vodacom was seeking to sell off its business interest in the DRC. “If it had sold its 51% in Vodacom DRC, it would have been difficult for me to recoup the money I was owed,” said Mabanga. “So we went to court in the DRC to attach 5% of its shareholding in Vodacom DRC.”

In April last year, the high court in Kinshasa ruled that Vodacom had to provisionally place shares to the value of $40.8-million in an escrow account. In January this year, the court in Kinshasa awarded a reduced claim of $21-million to Mabanga, against which Vodacom lodged an appeal for a stay of execution. The appeal was dismissed this week, paving the way for Vodacom to pay Mabanga the $21-million.

Asked to comment, Richard Boorman, Vodacom’s head of corporate affairs, said: “We have not yet received the full judgment on the ... matter. Once we have the relevant documentation, we will decide on an appropriate course of action.” When the initial judgment was handed down in January, Vodacom released a statement that it would object to a ruling by a DRC court, a move that Mabanga insists shows the company’s lack of respect for the DRC’s judicial system.

The Vodacom statement issued by Boorman at the time said: “We would clearly have material objections to any judgment by a Democratic Republic of Congo court in which a monetary award was granted to Namemco while the contractual dispute is currently being heard in court in South Africa, which has jurisdiction on the issue.”

Vodacom’s objections stemmed from the fact that its contract with Namemco Energy stipulated that any dispute would be decided under South African law.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Congo Republic: Mass Funeral for Victims of Explosion

One week after an explosion at an arms depot and barracks complex killed at least 246 people in the capital, Brazzaville, more than 100 were buried in a mass funeral. Officials said that only 159 bodies could be identified in time for the ceremony. The explosion was caused by a fire in the barracks that set off a lethal rain of grenades, mortar rounds, shells and rockets. The arms depot had not been moved away from the neighborhood despite an earlier government promise to do so after a less deadly explosion in 2009.

Source: New York Times

Hawks' KZN boss faces suspension

KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Major-General Johan Booysen is facing suspension and his unit, Durban's so-called police hit squad, has been shut down. But the developments in the investigation that led to his pending suspension will not be made public.

Hawks national spokesman McIntosh Polela yesterday confirmed that Booysen had been served with notice of intent to suspend him and that he had been given five days to respond to "certain allegations". Polela refused to elaborate on the allegations and said the Hawks did not plan to go public with Booysen's response. "It is true that there are new developments but we would not like to elaborate on this because we would like to give General Booysen the dignity and respect to involve himself in an internal process," Polela said. "Only after this process has been exhausted would we be at liberty to comment about it. This is an internal process."

Polela confirmed that Hawks head Anwa Dramat had permanently disbanded Booysen's Cato Manor unit and that its 24 officers would be transferred to the head office in Durban.

The KwaZulu-Natal head of crime intelligence, Major-General Deena Moodley, has also been served with a notice of intent to suspend him on an allegation unrelated to the Cato Manor unit. Booysen and the unit have been under investigation since December when reports of a police death squad surfaced.

The Sunday Times reported allegations that, under Booysen's command, the unit had committed scores of assassinations, some in retaliation for suspected cop killings and others related to taxi wars. It reported that Colonel Navin Madhoe - an officer in the provincial procurement office charged with trying to bribe Booysen with R2-million to drop a R60-million corruption case - had given the Hawks boss a memory stick, a hard drive and two CDs containing hundreds of photographs showing what appear to be gruesome killings of suspects by the police. The images include several of post-killing celebrations by members of the Cato Manor unit. In an affidavit, Madhoe said Booysen asked him to acquire the CDs as they contained "incriminating evidence of serious crimes in a unit under his direct command".

Independent Complaints Directorate spokesman Moses Dlamini yesterday confirmed that the investigation of the Cato Manor unit was continuing. "Once we have concluded the investigation we will hold a media briefing to reveal the outcome . The time frame will be dictated by what we uncover during the investigation," he said.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Jailed Radovan Krejcir reaches a deal with the Hawks

Radovan Krejcir’s lawyers on Friday told Eyewitness News he handed himself over to police overnight after reaching a private agreement with Hawks boss Anwar Dramat.

Krejcir is now behind bars in a secret location. He had been on the run since Tuesday night when a Hawks raid found a hit list containing the name of Cyril Beeka, who was killed on Monday in Cape Town. The list also included security consultant Paul O’Sullivan, a doctor and state prosecutor.

One of Krejcir’s attorney’s Eddie Claasen said everything went according to plan when Krejcir presented himself to police. “What was intended was that Mr. Krejcir can be handed over to the police and avoid the media frenzy that previously took place at the raided Mr. Krejcir’s home,” he said.

Meanwhile, O’Sullivan, who has been investigating Krejcir, said his detention does not mean people on the Czech fugitive’s hit list are now safe. He said those on the list should still take precautions, “This is a man who was able to arrange murders in the Czech Republic while he was in prison. He was arranging murders in the Czech Republic while he was in the Seychelles.”

The Hawks’ McIntosh Polela said Krejcir is now in a secret location, “He was detained in the early hours of the morning and we are still making provisions for when he is likely to appear in court.” Krejcir had been due to hand himself over on Thursday morning.

Source: Eye Witness News

Cloud over murder statistics

A filing cabinet packed with about 100 postmortem reports of murders and other unnatural deaths, which were not referred to the police for investigation, has been discovered at the Salt River mortuary in Cape Town. The discovery was made last year and brought to the attention of Mzwandile Petros, the former Western Cape police commissioner, now the commissioner in Gauteng. It is understood that he did not act until health authorities confirmed the existence of the reports.

It has been reported that Petros is heading a task team that is conducting a countrywide investigation into the validity of crime statistics, particularly with regard to inquest and murder dockets. His latest appointment will raise eyebrows, given his lack of prompt action in solving the Salt River mortuary mystery and his failure to launch an inquiry into the alleged manipulation of crime statistics at police stations in the Western Cape.

The Salt River post-mortems are understood to date back three years. Although the bodies were removed for burial or cremation, the cases were not investigated as they were not registered on the police crime administration system. Police liaison officers were sent to the mortuary earlier this year to address the problem and by last month the final post-mortem reports were registered with the police, sources said.

Many of the names of the deceased were found recorded in the reports but some identities were unknown. A similar situation arose at Tygerberg mortuary, where a smaller cache of post-mortem reports was found, but these were later registered with the police. The issue of how to prevent a recurrence was raised at recent meetings of the health department (which runs the two mortuaries), the police and justice officials. Petros was handed a detailed report on the issue after the matter had been raised at previous meetings. However, the police have still not established who put the post-mortem reports in the cabinet, or why they were not referred to the police.

It is believed these cases could have fallen through the cracks, as bodies are sometimes removed from Groote Schuur and Tygerberg hospitals and taken to mortuaries without police obtaining particulars. The task team that Petros has been appointed to lead is reported to be analysing 31 253 inquest dockets opened in the nine provinces in the 2009-2010 financial year. The probe is intended to reveal whether police stations filed deaths incorrectly under "inquest" instead of "murder".

In September Nathi Mthethwa, the police minister, announced that violent crime had declined last year, with murders down 8,6%. But police say the nationwide probe could raise questions about the authenticity of these figures. Last year former Western Cape police commissioner Lennit Max accused Petros of ignoring a letter he had written to him and the former acting national commissioner, Tim Williams, calling for an inquiry into the information he had been given that crime statistics were being manipulated at police stations in Paarl, Paarl East, Mbekweni, Wellington and Oudtshoorn.

The Independent Complaints Directorate eventually investigated the matter, and said earlier this year that Petros had stalled the release of the long-awaited report. According to leaked internal police reports, Petros and one of his former assistants, Anwa Dramat, now head of the Hawks, were informed at least three years ago that police stations in the province were manipulating crime statistics.

Petros claimed that one of the reports was a fake and refused to discuss the others. Neither Petros nor the Western Cape police had responded to questions from the Mail & Guardian at the time of going to press.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Hawks boss questions viability of arms-deal probe

The head of the Hawks, Anwa Dramat, on Wednesday questioned whether it was in South Africa's interest to pursue the only two remaining investigations linked to the arms-deal scandal.

Dramat told Parliament's watchdog public accounts committee, Scopa, that both cases were dependent on obtaining information from other countries, and could therefore take up to 10 years to conclude. "These two legs await information from other authorities. But even with information from the said authorities, the question is whether it is in the best interest of the country to pursue these investigations, which will take at least five to 10 years and cost more than R10-million." He added, to the outrage of MPs: "That is for Parliament to take an executive decision on."

Dramat was referring to investigations into claims that senior South African officials took bribes from German and British arms-makers who secured tenders to sell the country German warships and Hawk jet trainers. He confirmed that a single investigator -- former Scorpions members Johan du Plooy -- has been working on the complex case involving the German Frigate Consortium.

In order to obtain the help of the German authorities, the Hawks asked the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to appoint a judge to issue a request for mutual legal assistance. The matter has since been referred to the Special Commercial Crimes Unit. "Those dockets were presented to the NPA in June," Dramat said, adding that the Hawks had no choice but to wait for the NPA's next move.

The second case, involving claims of bribes from Britain's BAE Systems, appeared similarly stalled, with the police waiting for a decision from the NPA on whether or not to proceed with charges, or to request further investigation. Dramat said together the two cases involved alleged illicit payments of about R480-million.

Opposition MPs charged that the state of play suggested authorities were dragging their feet and might be under political duress to drop any remaining probe into the scandal, which dates from more than a decade ago. "It is my impression ... that what we've heard today [Wednesday] is that there is an investigation where there are 460 boxes of documents, 4,7-million computer-generated documents and one investigator apparently assigned to that investigation," David Maynier from the Democratic Alliance said. "I conclude or infer from that that what we are dealing with here is a non-investigation. The inference is always that we are in a situation like this because there has been some kind of political interference."

He asked Dramat and NPA head Menzi Simelane whether President Jacob Zuma and current or former ministers had ever sought to influence the course of the investigations. Both Dramat and Simelane strenuously denied any political meddling.

Dramat said he had only met Zuma in person on one occasion, "and there was no discussion of any investigation with the president at all. I can confirm that at least on my side there has been no pressure or undue influence that has been placed on me in terms of this investigation." Simelane added: "The answer is no, I have never discussed any matter in the NPA with President Zuma." He added that he would not rush the cases to suit the opposition either. "The matter will be dealt with in accordance with the law and as reasonably and possibly as we can. We are not going to do anything that compromises any investigation just because it suits any individuals or parties that are interested in this matter."

Asked about his decision to order the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) to abandon steps to freeze the foreign assets of former defence adviser Fana Hlongwane in the BAE investigation, Simelane again cited a lack of foreign cooperation among the obstacles encountered. Maynier quipped that the snail's pace at which both cases were proceeding suggested the "Hawks need a strong dose of investigative Red Bull".

The arms-deal investigations go back to the mid-1990s. In 2008, the Scorpions reopened the case involving BAE's sale of Hawk jet trainers to South Africa and raided the offices of Hlongwane and BAE's Pretoria premises at the end of that year. In February, Britain's Serious Fraud Office decided to settle bribery charges with arms manufacturer BAE Systems, raising concerns that the South African probe would hit a dead end. In March, Simelane ordered the AFU not to pursue an attempt to seize millions of rands held in Lichtenstein by Hlongwane, saying he was not convinced by the evidence against him.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Did Hawks act criminally on Wa Afrika?

The Hawks' involvement in the criminal case against Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika has been questioned. Legal opinions obtained suggest that the Hawks' swoop on Wa Afrika could be irregular because it would be a case that falls outside the new elite priority crimes unit's mandate.  But yesterday, the Hawks attempted to distance themselves from the arrest.

Hawks spokesman Musa Zondi - who was present when Wa Afrika was arrested - said "the Hawks were not necessarily involved in the case".  "The arrest was being effected by Mbombela detectives," said Zondi. "We merely provided support, and unfortunately everyone said the Hawks (did it).  The head of the Hawks in the province is also the head of the detective services." Zondi stated that all detective services fell under the command of Hawks head Anwa Dramat.  Asked why he has consistently been the point of information on the case, Zondi said he was first and foremost a police spokesman.

Wa Afrika was arrested after a complaint by Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza, who claimed the journalist was in possession of a "forged letter" in which the premier tendered his resignation. Constitutional Law expert Professor Pierre de Vos described the Hawks' involvement in the arrest as "strange".  "The SA Police Service Amendment Act created the Hawks to only pursue priority crimes, defined as organised crime or crime that requires national interventions such as a network of criminal operations across the country. They are also mandated to investigate crimes that require specialised skills such as very serious commercial crimes."

Wa Afrika was initially charged with fraud and defeating the ends of justice, which was later dropped due to lack of evidence.  "With the evidence at our disposal it is very difficult to say how it can be seen as a priority crime if the person deals with a fraudulent letter," De Vos argued. "So this means one of two things. Either the Hawks investigated a crime they were not legally empowered to investigate or (police chief General Bheki) Cele made the decision."

De Vos believes it would be difficult to link the allegedly fraudulent document to the destabilisation of the state.

Source: IoL

Arms deal report outrage

The Auditor-general and the public protector failed South Africans in 2001 by not coming clean on the substantive changes they allowed politicians to make to their final report on alleged arms deal corruption.

These strong words come from businessman Richard Young, who was told last week that his testimony would no longer be required by Parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) when it deliberates on new allegations of corruption in the government's arms-acquisition package. Young questioned the conclusion of the troika of investigators appointed by former president Thabo Mbeki - then-auditor-general Shauket Fakie, former public protector Selby Baqwa and the national director of public prosecutions at the time, Bulelani Ngcuka - when they said no material or substantive amendments were made to their findings by the executive. He obtained several of the draft versions of the Joint Investigative Team (JIT) report on allegations of irregularities in the arms deal through a court order after taking the government to court over its reward of a sub-contract to a French company.

Last year he submitted to Scopa 700-odd pages of drafts and documents to Parliament after it made a public call for new evidence in the decade-long saga of allegations that politicians and officials have benefited fraudulently from the R60 billion deal. It coincides with Scopa's assessment of whether government departments and entities followed through on the recommendations made in the JIT report commissioned by Mbeki in 2000.

Young's copies of the draft reports point to possible interference by a ministerial committee to sanitise the JIT report. Among the changed portions are allegedly findings that indicate manipulation in choosing the final bidders, according to documents released by the DA last year.

Young told Independent Newspapers that the drafters had "cynically manipulated the report in the way that a ministers' committee ordered". "I would say the arms deal was the biggest act of corruption at that time, but the report's cover-up is the biggest act of fraud yet against the people of South Africa," Young charged. "The documents before Scopa are proof of that."

It includes a transcript of a two-day hearing held in Parliament after the finalisation of the report in which both Fakie and Baqwa deny that they were told to alter their report, except to accommodate matters of national interest and make it readable. "Because of the changed report the cabinet could wash its hands of any wrongdoing in the arms deal," said Young. Neither Baqwa nor Fakie - who both have executive positions in the private sector now - could be reached for comment.

Allegations that Mbeki's office was involved in the changes to the final draft have made headlines since 2003 and at one stage prompted Fakie to plead with Parliament to help protect the integrity of his office. Young said the names of arms-deal agents who were later investigated for fraud and bribery in Britain and Germany for graft were in the draft reports, but omitted in the final report. "You can look at the original and it says that the minister (of defence, the late Joe Modise) interfered in the Hawk and Gripen tenders. I would say that the final report was fundamentally flawed."

Scopa chairman Themba Godi said this was necessary because the police elite unit - the Hawks - first needed to return to the committee to answer questions on ongoing arms-deal investigations it inherited from the Scorpions, its predecessor. Godi said the meeting would be rescheduled once Hawks head Anwa Dramat was available.

The JIT report enjoined the Scorpions to criminal investigations into allegations of fraud in the deal, which has already led to the conviction of Schabir Shaik. It is, however, understood that there are tensions within the ANC over how much exposure the review should get. MPs who have studied Young's submission suggested that it wouldn't be plain sailing if they accepted his scenario.

In a written submission to Scopa, Young had suggested "that only about 25 percent of the content of the full report was disclosed". Copies of a purported draft version of the report showed sections that have been crossed out and handwritten amendments, including a revision of the team's conclusions. One of the additions includes the conclusion that "the joint investigation team found no evidence of impropriety, fraud or corruption by cabinet (or) government" - despite the finding in the original report that pointed to possible interference by officials of the Department of Defence and Armscor.

On Friday, arms-deal crusader Terry Crawford-Browne also delivered a raft of key documents on the deal to Parliament in a last-ditch attempt to ensure Scopa's inquiry did not founder. Crawford-Browne handed over pages of affidavits - including search warrants compiled by the British Serious Fraud Office and the erstwhile Scorpions which outlines allegations of bribes of R1,3bn that arms manufacturer British Aerospace (BAe) allegedly paid to secure a contract.

Source: IoL

New crime-fighting unit dubbed the Hawks

South Africa's new Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations has been dubbed "the Hawks".

Anwa Dramat, the head of the unit, said it would focus on fighting organised crime and corruption as well as serious economic crimes.

He said 288 cases from the Scorpions -- which the new unit replaces -- would be transferred to the Hawks. Two hundred and twenty former members of the Scorpions would also be transferred to the new unit.

South Africa: New Crime Unit

The government on Thursday appointed a little-known police official to lead a new law enforcement unit in South Africa, which has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world and has been rocked by corruption scandals. The official, Anwa Dramat, currently deputy police chief in the Western Cape Province, will become head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations when it begins on July 1. The country’s governing African National Congress party disbanded an elite investigating team known as the Scorpions in October after its graft investigation into the A.N.C. leader Jacob Zuma, now South Africa’s president. Critics have accused Mr. Zuma’s party of pushing through legislation to disband the unit out of vengeance.

Source: New York Times

Sustained gunfire reported in Congo's capital

Heavy gunfire sounded in Congo's capital on Thursday around the home of presidential runner-up Jean-Pierre Bemba, witnesses said. "We've been hearing shooting from heavy arms coming from the area of Jean-Pierre Bemba's residence," office worker Emery Makumeno said by phone from a nearby building. Makumeno and an AP photographer in the area said the shooting had been going on for about an hour.

Soldiers deployed throughout the city and people could be seen fleeing in vehicles and on foot. It was unclear whether the gunfire was coming from government soldiers, civilians or members of Bemba's armed guard. Bemba's guard has refused to disband as promised as part of a deal with the government of President Joseph Kabila. It was the first fighting in the capital since Kabila was installed as the Central African country's first freely elected president in decades late last year.

Bemba, who came in second, initially rejected the election results and his militia took to the streets, clashing with Kabila's security forces. At least two dozen civilians were killed. He gave up his challenge after Congo's Supreme Court rejected his claims of an unfair vote. Bemba, an ex-warlord who was recently elected senator, was allowed keep his personal army - numbering in the thousands - until this month. Last week, his personal guard was expected to register at an army base, where they were to begin their integration into the Congolese security force. But his militia ignored the deadline, and a spokesperson said Bemba's security was still uncertain.

Armed men wearing uniforms that designated them as Bemba's fighters could be seen deployed around his residence, Makumeno said. He said they were holding guns ready, apparently ready to shoot out onto the street - a wide boulevard that was the site of earlier brawls.

Source: IoL

First results posted in DR Congo

Polling stations in the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun posting interim results, after the first multi-party election in 40 years. Full results of Sunday's polls are not expected for weeks. The elections were aimed at ending a long civil war, with 32 candidates, including incumbent Joseph Kabila, contesting the presidency.

Over 9,000 candidates stood for parliament. Some 25m voters were protected by 17,000 UN peacekeepers. It is still far from clear whether a second round will be required, or whether a candidate will gain the 50% of the votes needed to win outright, the BBC News website's Joseph Winter reports from Kinshasa. The RCD party, led by former rebel and Vice-President Azarias Ruberwa, told our correspondent there had been "widespread fraud".

RCD Secretary General Kabasu Babu Katulondi said RCD representatives had been chased out of polling stations when counting started, while ruling PPRD officials had been caught trying to vote more than once. "The delay is one of Kabila's tricks to manipulate the figures," he said. Results from several polling stations seemed to back up pre-election predictions that former rebel leader and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba would win most votes in Kinshasa.

However President Kabila was expected to win more votes in eastern DR Congo, where he is credited with ending the war. Thomas Luaka, a spokesman for Mr Bemba's MLC party said that while he "deplored some incidents, overall, the elections went well". Earlier, Mr Bemba's supporters had demonstrated on the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, saying they were cheated. Independent Electoral Commission official Carole Kabanga Kaoy said she could not comment on the allegations of fraud until she had received official reports, at which point each party would be free to provide evidence of irregularities.

Mr Kabila, who came to power unelected in 2001, has told the BBC he will accept the result of Sunday's presidential elections, even if he loses. "It would have been the verdict of the people and of course we will definitely accept the verdict of the people," he said.

Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and his UDPS party boycotted the vote. There were reports of violence on election day in Mr Tshisekedi's stronghold, the south-eastern Kasai region. But a United Nations official said he was "relieved" and "delighted" with how the voting had gone. "All indications that we have, not just from Kinshasa, but across the country is that the population has responded fairly substantively," UN envoy Ross Mountain said. "The number of incidents have been absolutely minimal. The security hasn't been a problem and it has been an extraordinary day for Congo."

BBC world affairs correspondent Mark Doyle says the real test of the elections will be the acceptance of the results by all of the former warring parties. The presidential candidates include the four vice-presidents who took office in 2003 in terms of a transitional power-sharing deal. Three of the four vice-presidents are the leaders of former armed factions. Some opposition candidates accuse Mr Kabila of being backed by the international community, and are already unofficially complaining about what they say are irregularities in the voting, our corresponent says.

Source: BBC

Congo president on military rapes: 'Unforgivable'

Confronted with atrocious accounts of rape committed by members of the Congo military, Congolese President Joseph Kabila at first was silent -- then found his voice, saying "It's shocking. These kinds of acts are simply unforgivable." The father of a young girl, Kabila was commenting after watching an exclusive CNN report from last week in which women, children and a doctor described an array of sex crimes by the Congolese military -- some of whom used knives to rape their victims.

Kabila, a former military man, appeared shaken after the report. He watched it and watched it again, shifting uncomfortably in his seat each time he heard a victim's horrific story, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes. Locals say soldiers from one ethnic group are systematically raping and mutilating women from another group, with the intention, they say of destroying their child-bearing capabilities. Kabila was quick to acknowledge that more than 300 former soldiers have been convicted and jailed for sexual crimes, but admitted that is not enough. "We clearly need to do more for our citizens," he said. "But just imagine for a moment a country as large as all of Western Europe with few roads and little infrastructure. It's a difficult terrain to police and Congo doesn't have an effective policing system. But after the election, all this will change. If elected, I will make this one of my first priorities."

Kabila is the transitional president, appointed to the job after the assassination of his father in January 2001. He hopes to be the first democratically elected leader since Congo gained independence in 1960. A U.N. report earlier this month found that physical violence against civilians by members of the security forces is "reported wherever army and police are deployed." The report went on to say that rapes and other sexual violence against women and girls are occurring throughout the country, with the "main perpetrators being army and police officers." How can such crimes be happening with such impunity under his presidency? "It's shameful that soldiers anywhere are allowed to do such things," he said. "That's why I want to be president. I want to change this. I want to make security one of my first priorities so that these and other acts come to an end once and for all."

Five years ago, Kabila was catapulted to power after his father, then-President Laurent Desire Kabila, was assassinated in an attempted coup. Joseph Kabila was then 29 years old and the army chief of staff, having spent half his life in the military. He saw a peace deal signed more than three years ago attempt to halt a bloody war that began in 1998 and drew in no less than six other African countries in what Africa analysts dubbed the continent's First World War. That conflict killed an estimated 3.9 million people, and despite the accord, fighting and lawlessness abounds. Now, at 34, Kabila is running for election at the end of July. The West hopes the first democratic elections in more than 40 years will bring an end to the nation's infighting. Kabila is considered the favorite among a field of 33 candidates. "This election is extremely important for the Congolese people," he said. "It's been a long time coming, and we need this to get back into the fold of the community of nations."

Kabila spoke to CNN in the town of Lubumbashi in the country's south, a province as large as Texas and mineral-rich in everything from copper to cobalt to uranium. He appeared relaxed and at ease at first, dressed in a pin-striped suit, sky-blue shirt and striped tie. But that changed when he was shown the report on victims of sexual violence in Bukavu. "I've spent most of my life in the military," he said. "This isn't the way soldiers are supposed to behave. If elected, I will do everything I can to rectify this problem and help make our people feel safe again."

In its 2006 report on human rights in the Congo, Amnesty International said that "slow progress was (being) made in building security, justice and respect for human rights after nearly a decade of war." However, the group also noted that "Despite systematic violations of human rights, hardly any suspected perpetrators were brought to justice."

Source: CNN

Congo National Troops Thwart Coup Attempt

Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila has appeared on national television to assure the public he is in charge after a coup attempt by a small band of renegades failed. In the broadcast, Mr. Kabila urged people to remain calm and vigilant.

The coup attempt began after midnight Thursday when renegade forces took over the state radio station in the capital, Kinshasa. Coup leader -- Major Eric Lenge -- announced that the transitional government had been suspended. Following skirmishes with government security forces, Major Lenge and 21 of his men fled the capital. President Kabila said the army had arrested 12 of the renegade soldiers and was chasing the others. The arrested soldiers were all members of the presidential guard.

Source: Voice of America

Rwanda and Congo Sign Accord to End War

The war for control of Congo appeared to edge a step closer to an end today, with the signing of an accord between two rivals, Presidents Joseph Kabila of Democratic Republic of the Congo and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Meeting here in the South African capital, where the pact was drafted last week, the leaders shook hands, exchanged a few words and smiled almost shyly as a standing-room-only audience of diplomats, journalists and cabinet ministers looked on.

The war, which began almost four years ago, has ravaged Congo, killing more than 2.5 million people, many of them combatants but many more civilians who died of starvation or disease, cut off from food and medicine. The conflict has roiled much of Africa, sowing instability in already unstable places like Burundi and Angola. ''Without peace in this region, we couldn't talk about peace on continent generally,'' Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, said at the signing ceremony today. ''This matter is very crucial.''

The agreement signed today calls for Rwanda to withdraw its soldiers, who number in the tens of thousands, from a large part of eastern Congo controlled by Rwanda and its Congolese rebel allies since the war broke out in 1998. The Congolese government, which sits in Kinshasa in the west, agreed to disarm thousands of Hutu militiamen from Rwanda who fled across the border into Congo after perpetrating mass killings in 1994 that killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and moderate Hutu. ''No more blood must run,'' President Kabila said in his remarks before signing the agreement. Keeping that pledge will require swift, decisive steps, said François Grignon, the Central Africa director for the International Crisis Group, a research organization. It will also require trust and candor, Dr. Grignon said in a telephone interview from Nairobi. ''We need to see good will, and we have not seen good will yet.'' Even then, success is uncertain.

Disarming Rwandan militias and repatriating them to a country where they fear reprisals is bound to be difficult. Easing Zimbabwe out of Congo is another challenge. Zimbabwe has thousands of soldiers involved, some of them in lucrative business deals that they may be reluctant to abandon. Asked about the assorted obstacles, a senior South African official at the ceremony said, ''We have to start somewhere.'' South Africa knows that its fellow African nations to the north -- many now pocked by war and famine -- are ground for its economic might and political influence to grow. With the newly established African Union, President Mbeki has taken a leading role in the effort to create political stability, and the last few months have given him a great deal more hope than he might have had even a year ago.

Sudan, locked in civil war for nearly 20 years, is in the early stages of talks, although sporadic fighting persists. Angola, at war for most of the last three decades, is even farther along, after the death of the rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in February left his weary forces little choice but surrender. The war in Congo, the vast country known for decades as Zaire, has its origins in the toppling of the long-ruling dictator Mobuto Sese Seko in 1997. The coup's leader, Laurent Kabila, was initially backed by Rwanda and Uganda, but they soon fell out with him over his harboring of Hutu militiamen complicit in the Rwanda genocide.

In 1998, Rwanda and Uganda invaded eastern Congo and began backing rebels operating in the region, hoping to oust the man they had helped install barely a year before. Congo's army was outmatched by Rwanda's, but Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe came to Mr. Kabila's rescue, deploying thousands of soldiers. A peace agreement made in 1999 never took hold and fighting persisted, killing combatants by the thousands and civilians by the tens of thousands, mostly from disease and starvation. After Laurent Kabila was killed in January 2001, his son Joseph was installed as president. Although early signs were encouraging, the war persisted, defying one peace effort after another.

A turning point came earlier this year in Sun City, South Africa, during weeks of talks among hundreds of Congolese political and civic leaders delegated to lay the groundwork for the country's postwar future. After months of futility, negotiations seemed at the precipice of failure, but a last-minute initiative spearheaded by President Mbeki renewed hope of an agreement. One of the two principal rebel groups, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, backed by Uganda and based in the country's north, ultimately reached a power-sharing agreement with the Kabila government. Not so the other leading rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma, based in the east and backed by Rwanda. It held out, and the talks ended without a comprehensive agreement. Pressure on Rwanda from crucial allies like South Africa and the United States began to build.

Rwanda knew its options were up, and Congo, whose official name is the Democratic Republic of Congo, knew its chance was at hand, Dr. Grignon said. ''I think the pressure on Rwanda and the D.R.C. was so strong that they had to act,'' he said.

Source: New York Times