AMABHUNGANE: SAPS Wars Part 3: Bheki Cele, Robert McBride and the mysterious Mr Marimuthu By amaBhungane
Part 3 traces the central role of Robert McBride – and his not-so-surprising fallout with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s minister of police, Bheki Cele.We are in the thick of a full-blown war right now,” political commentator Oscar van Heerden wrote last month. Ramaphosa’s 2017 Nasrec conference victory, he pointed out, was merely a battle won: “The war is still very much underway.”
Police minister Bheki Cele addresses the media after the release of the 2017/18 crime statistics at Parliament on September 11, 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo by Gallo Images / Sowetan / Esa AlexanderBoth were sharp thorns disrupting Zuma’s state capture footwork, slowing him down, hobbling his foot-soldiers.
Perhaps most crucial was IPID’s intervention, on the eve of the Nasrec conference, to investigate and block the purchase by SAPS crime intelligence of a “grabber” to intercept cellphone communications. Then, as now, the fight was not only about who controlled access to the political and business secrets procured by grabbers and agents, but also who had access to the huge pile of slush money that constitutes the crime intelligence “secret fund”.Mdluli was clearly unsure of his footing with Cele, because evidence emerged later that he used crime intelligence to try to exercise leverage against the then national commissioner.
The 2006 report of the Jali commission into prison corruption states that in 1992 Marimuthu was sentenced to four years imprisonment for dealing in mandrax. He said in 2007 his government friend advised him to buy trucks so Marimuthu could “start getting involved in construction”.January [2008] was my first contract received for R18-million and then the very same month for R32-million.”
AmaBhungane has also seen an affidavit from a crime intelligence agent to the effect that in conversations around the same period Marimuthu told the agent that he and Cele “were very good friends and he was looking after him as they have business deals together”. AmaBhungane has seen evidence that the Cato Manor story was prompted by a tip-off from a senior policeman and that gruesome crime scene photographs that provided the core of the newspaper’s evidence were provided by crime intelligence.
We put it to Cele that he has told people in private that when he was down-and-out, Marimuthu was the only one that put food on his table; we also put the allegation to him that after he was fired by President Zuma, Matimuthu diverted a portion of his fees from crime intelligence for Cele’s benefit.We put it to Cele that the IGI is investigating the engagement of Marimuthu and his family by crime intelligence.
Mdluli was charged with intimidation, conspiracy to commit murder and obstructing the course of justice. In mid-2011, Cele’s location in the anti-Zuma camp was cemented when Zuma suspended him following the Public Protector’s report on the police leasing scandal. For the next seven years, Cele waged a low-level political war against Zuma, despite the latter appointing him deputy minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries after the 2014 elections.
Early 2016 saw a raft of new appointments by Ntlemeza and Phahlane to the top structures of the police and the Hawks, many of whom are still in place, and many of whom became targets for McBride when he regained control of IPID in October of that year. It was a critical time for the balance of state capture forces, but two court rulings turned the tide – the September 2016 Constitutional Court judgement that overturned McBride’s suspension and the March 2017 decision setting aside Ntlemeza’s appointment.
O’Sullivan’s active support for McBride was clearly regarded as a pressure point and the SAPS brass were later shown to have cast around for sources and witnesses from inside IPID to provide evidence about O’Sullivan’s role. McBride said I-View was paid just two days after the quotation was submitted and before any agreement had been concluded with I-View: “There is no evidence that the service was ever rendered… There is no evidence that the RIPJAR software was ever installed on the SAPS Crime Intelligence systems.”
The ANC conference ran from 16 to 20 December 2017 at Nasrec, with Ramaphosa winning by the narrowest of margins, backed by Cele, and, unexpectedly, by David Mabuza.Initially, it seemed things might get easier for McBride. By the end of February, Zuma had resigned and Ramaphosa, now president, appointed Cele to succeed Mbalula as police minister.IPID had been trying to obtain information relating to the grabber purchase and other classified matters since early 2018.
According to a parliamentary briefing prepared by IPID, Tshabalala was convicted of robbery with aggravated circumstances in 1996 and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The SAPS “dismissed” him, but re-employed him under an agent programme after he was released on parole. In an affidavit, Nkabinde denied this. When he was shown to have lied about a crucial detail in his affidavit, the magistrate found him to beThe prosecutor was forced to provisionally withdraw the case.
A key player was Brigadier Lincoln Hlungwani, a section head in the crime intelligence section responsible for administration of the Secret Services Account – the secret fund. In December 2017, Hlungwani became aware of the emergency proposal to buy a grabber from I-View for R45-million. The IPID staffer alleged, among other things, that McBride allowed a private person – forensic investigator O’Sullivan – to conduct official investigations, had divulged confidential information to him and conducted investigations through the media in order to deliberately tarnish the reputations of targeted individuals.McBride claimed in his court application that not long afterwards he confronted Cele in his office and asked why the minister had not raised Nkabinde’s complaint with him.
As far as amaBhungane could establish, the chair never distributed the complaint officially, though it was leaked to the media later that month.
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