'No-one can be linked' to treason allegations against McBride
26 October 2017
Johannesburg - Investigations have revealed that there appears to be no substance to the allegations of treason made against IPID head Robert McBride in 2016.
News24 has seen a letter sent by acting national Hawks head Yolisa Matakata to McBride, which gives a status report on investigations on which McBride had raised concerns.
The first update related to the treason charges Gauteng Hawks head Major-General Prince Mokotedi had laid against McBride in December 2016.
Mokotedi laid nine charges at the Bedfordview police station against McBride, forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan, Mokotedi's predecessor Shadrack Sibiya, and crime intelligence official Captain Candice Coetzee.
Mokotedi claimed the four had plotted against President Jacob Zuma and his supporters, including Mokotedi, previous Hawks' head Mthandazo Berning Ntlemeza, previous acting police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane, national Prosecuting Authority head Shaun Abrahams, and State Security Agency director general Arthur Fraser.
The plot was supposedly hatched at a braai held at Czech criminal Radovan Krejcir's old house in Bedfordview, along with members of AfriForum and the Democratic Alliance.
The charges were high treason, espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, corruption, intimidation, harassment, defeating the ends of justice, tax evasion, and contravention of the immigration laws.
McBride said, at the time, that the charges were laid in retaliation against IPID's investigations into Ntlemeza and Phahlane.
'Abuse of power'
The treason allegations came soon after IPID interviewed Ntlemeza over allegations of fraud, perjury and crimen injuria.
In her information note to McBride, Matakata indicated that the docket in the treason case had been placed before the National Director of Public Prosecutions' (NDPP) Priority Crime Litigation Unit, but it had been returned to the investigator "with further instructions".
"Thus far, the investigation revealed that no-one can be linked to the allegations," the letter said.
Matakata said her office would await the outcome from the NDPP and the Priority Crime Litigation Unit in the case.
IPID spokesperson Moses Dlamini said the feedback "again confirms our numerous experiences of the abuse of power by some police officers, especially under former head of Hawks, Mthandazo Ntlemeza".
The information note also included an update into Leon Abednigo Mbangwa, the previous chief of staff in then-Police Minister Nathi Nhleko's office.
He was a convicted fraudster who was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in 2002. He said he had been given police clearance.
Matakata said the matter was being investigated by the Hawks and the investigation was at an advanced stage.
