'It's a conspiracy' - McBride

Pretoria- Suspended Ipid boss Robert McBride said on Wednesday he and his two co-accused were victims of a conspiracy which saw Hawks head Anwa Dramat kicked out of office.

“As can be seen from the witness statement from one of my co-accused, there is a conspiracy. The decision to move Dramat from office was taken long before Dramat was even issued with a notice to suspend him,” McBride told reporters outside the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court after being released on R1500 bail.

“People knew who was going to be appointed before that.”

McBride, Matthew Sesoko, and Innocent Khuba face charges of fraud and defeating the ends of justice following their investigation of Dramat.

Dramat was accused of being involved in the illegal rendition of five Zimbabwean nationals in 2010. McBride allegedly changed an Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) report implicating Dramat in the renditions in order to protect him.

Addressing the media after getting bail, McBride challenged authorities to produce evidence to back the charges.

“In our bail conditions no mention was made of not speaking to witnesses. Simple reason for that is there are no witnesses and those are normal conditions for bail,” he said.

McBride accused Police Minister Nathi Nhleko of approaching Khuba to implicate him and Sesoko in the matter.

“The fact that Mr Khuba was contacted by the minister himself is an indication of interference in Ipid processes, which should be independent. 

“The fact that the investigation is conducted by a unit called Crimes Against the State is just to add gravitas and seriousness to a non-offence.”

He said the Cats unit, which he called the “Gestapo wing” of the Hawks, made at least four attempts to get Khuba to implicate him and Sesoko.

“In the approach to Mr Khuba to falsely implicate us, mention is made that they (Hawks), also have contacts in the NPA which will make things go their way, is very frightening and it looks like we are on a very slippery slope,” he added.

McBride said they were being accused of changing an opinion about an investigation because they received new evidence which contradicted the original findings. He said the investigator would have had a case to answer had he failed to take the new evidence into account.

“The document which I signed, which was the investigation as recommended by Mr Khuba, I stand by it and I endorse it. It’s a first time in the history of the country that investigators get charged for their opinion on a recommendation about a case. It is quite ground-breaking in a way,” said McBride.

“We want to go to court and we want to go as quickly as possible because we are dying to see what the evidence is. We are dying to see the witnesses which we know don’t exist,” he said.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku said they would not discuss the merits of the case in public.

“We are ready and the investigations are completed," he said.

This article first appeared on News24 – see here.