KZN Hawks boss Johan Booysen has lifted the lid on the four-year fight for his job as powerful players used the law to keep him out. One of these was national Hawks head, Berning Ntlemeza, whose appointment was recently quesioned in Parliament.This is an excerpt from Jessica Pitchford’s account of his story
I wondered if the timing of the latest fraud charges had been a deliberate ploy by Ntlemeza to cast further aspersions on me in the week that I was to be interviewed for the highest post in the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation.
The interview, on 18 August, was at the office of Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko. Johan arrived first. Three others arrived – one of them was Jan Mabula. Johan had recently instituted a civil claim against him.
I had demanded R10.8-million compensation from Mabula, Minister Nhleko, IPID’s Glen Angus, who had assisted in my arrest, and Jiba, accusing them of wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution and abusing state institutions. I felt that they had continuously harassed me since I began the corruption investigation in 2011.
Now I had to sit in the same room as Mabula. It was an uncomfortable situation. I didn’t bother to make small talk – I closed my eyes and dozed off until it was my turn to be interviewed.
During the interview with Nathi Nhleko, Justice Minister Michael Masutha, State Security Minister David Mahlobo and Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu, Johan was asked about the latest intended suspension.
I explained there was no evidence to suggest I was party to fraud to obtain awards for myself and Cato Manor.
He didn’t get the job.
Berning Ntlemeza, who’d been acting in the Hawks post for seven months and who wasn’t present on the day of the interviews, was appointed permanently on 10 September 2015. A competency check, said the interviewing committee, ‘was deemed superfluous to the experience and track record of the preferred candidate’.
One of the first things the preferred candidate did in his new position was to gather an entourage to fly to Durban to suspend Johan. It was, Johan thought, an attempt by Ntlemeza and the minister of police to show Ngobeni where their allegiances lay.
But someone from HQ in Pretoria gave Johan the heads up and instead of going to the office he went to see a Crime Intelligence contact in Pietermaritzburg.
At about midday he started getting text messages from colleagues: about how put out Ngobeni had been when she’d led Ntlemeza and armed members of the Tactical Response team to Johan’s office, only to find it locked. She had demanded the key from his PA Elaine, who didn’t have it.
She and Ntlemeza had told Elaine if she didn’t open the door she would be suspended too.
I knew it was just a way to try to intimidate me. They had no right to search my office. PC Ngobeni had been trying to intimidate me for five years, from when she first allowed Thoshan Panday to confront me in her office, to when she had got Phiyega to try to bully me.
Ntlemeza had called all the KZN Hawks detectives together and told them they weren’t allowed to communicate with their now former commander. That included Johan’s brother, Anton, a lieutenant-colonel with Organised Crime.
So I couldn’t speak to my own brother, even about personal stuff. They were trying to excommunicate me and make other people afraid. It was all so ridiculous so I decided to lay charges of my own against Ntlemeza for impairing my dignity. And for making misrepresentations. The notice of intention to suspend was in itself a fraudulent document.
Johan went back to his office late that afternoon after everyone had left. He wrote a statement saying that the allegations Ntlemeza had made in the suspension letter were wrong.
He’d said that the cases we’d claimed for weren’t linked to the Chonco killing and that everything in the document was false. Even though there’d been inquests in some of these cases and a magistrate had ruled on them.
Then I went to the Durban Central police station and laid charges of crimen injuria and fraud against him. The captain at the charge office was surprised to see me – it wasn’t often that a general came in to lay a complaint. He arranged with the provincial head of IPID to collect the docket.
That night Johan was contacted by an unlikely source, from deep within the corridors of power, and told to watch his back. He should sleep away from home and change his cellphone number. So he got a new SIM card – for what it was worth – packed a bag, fed his bull terrier, Belize, and hit the road.
The following day he sat at Europa Café in Florida Road, taking call after call, from journalists, colleagues and lawyers. In the corner of the coffee shop, back to the wall, was a bodyguard in a black suit. At his feet a big bag containing an LM6 assault rifle. He also had a 9mm on him. It was a point at which most people would’ve thrown in the towel.
I’m gatvol, I admit it, but if I start something I must finish it. I can’t capitulate. It’s not in my nature. I’m not going to accept money as if I have done something wrong. I refused Phiyega’s offer of a package, now suddenly I’m accused of fraud for a typing mistake made by someone else seven years ago and I am suspended again.
His daughter, Natalie, had wanted him to take the package, which would have amounted to R2.5 million, over and above a pension, after 38 years in the force. It upset her every time he got up, bloodied and bruised, to fight another round:
He’s always been Mr Fix-it, able to sort anything out. There have been so many attempts to get rid of him, sometimes it’s hard to keep track and any normal person would’ve cracked up. It affects our whole family – sometimes we feel helpless. I have Google alerts on my phone – and when ‘Booysen’ pops up I think – oh no, what now?
His son Eben sent him a text message after the latest suspension: ‘ Ek weet nie of ek as seun van ’n pa of as suid afrikaner die meeste teleurgesteld is nie … nie in dedda, maar in die mense wat die besluit gemaak het.’ (‘I don’t know if I’m more disappointed as a South African, or as your son, not in you Dad, but in the people that took this decision.’)
Johan replied: ‘Dis die lewe, seun. Ek vat dit op die ken en gaan aan.’(‘That’s life, son. I take it on the chin and carry on.’)
Johan walked across Florida Road to a computer shop.
The bodyguard waited outside.
Three men walked in.
One of them was Schabir Shaik.
The same Schabir Shaik who Aiyer had told everyone Johan wanted to have killed.
Shaik stopped in front of him.
‘Booysen!’
Johan looked up.
‘You have my support. But you should have taken what Phiyega offered you. Never trust them. F*** them! Fight them!’
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The cast of characters in this excerpt
* Thoshan Panday – Durban multimillionaire businessman and SAPS contractor
* Jan Mabula – Hawks Major-General investigating Booysen and Cato Manor
* Mmamonnye Ngobeni – KZN provincial police commissioner; appointed 2009, suspended 2016
* Riah Phiyega – National police commissioner, 2012–2015 suspended
* Berning Ntlemeza – National head of Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), 2015–present
* Nathi Nhleko – Police minister, 2014–present
* Nomgcobo Jiba – Deputy head of NPA who, as acting head, signed authorisation to charge Booysen, and was charged with fraud and perjury
* Rajen Aiyer – Colonel and commander of Durban Organised Crime, of which
Cato Manor was a sub-section; 2006–2009
* Zethembe Chonco – Lieutenant Colonel; SAPS taxi violence co-ordinator whose assassination in 2008 inadvertently led to the suspension of Booysen and Cato Manor
* Glen Angus, Ipid investigator.